


Prelude to a Kiss

by gretawhy



Category: Goo Goo Dolls (Band), NSYNC
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-13 02:32:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 63,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11750241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gretawhy/pseuds/gretawhy
Summary: "I really love your song. 'Iris.' It's really great, and it sounded great.""It sounded like shit. Just like everything else today. All of it. Shit."Pause. "Oh." Longer pause. "Okay then. I was just trying to be nice."Lance and John randomly run into each other over the years and John can't get the kid out of his head.  But John's not gay.





	1. Chapter 1

_Wango Tango, 2000_

"I really love your song. 'Iris.' It's really great, and it sounded great."

"It sounded like shit. Just like everything else today. All of it. Shit."

Pause. "Oh." Longer pause. "Okay then. I was just trying to be nice."

John looks up and squints into the sun to see the kid talking to him. He feels like he should know him, he is in one of the most popular groups in the country right now. Also? He thinks he briefly met them before the show. Although, he was drunk, that could have been the other group. Larry. No. Landon. John tilts his head; this kid could be a Landon, that's a boyband name. "Thanks," he says, hesitating, the end of the sentence hanging in the air.

"Lance," the kid supplies, and _yes, Lance!_ That's it. The kid smiles and John thinks he's too earnest for this business, he's not nearly jaded and cynical enough.

"Yeah, well, thanks," John says again, but his tone is rude, he can hear it, but fuck it, he doesn't much care at this point.

Lance's forehead wrinkles slightly and he takes a step back, "I was just trying to be nice."

"You already said that," John points out.

"Oh." Lance shrugs a bit then and turns, "Right. Okay, then. Bye."

John looks up from his guitar case and then feels a pang of guilt, because the kid really just wanted to talk to him, and when did he get to be such an asshole that he can't talk to someone who's a fan? "Hey," he says and Lance turns around. "Sorry, we just…" John waves his hand, "had a bad show. They didn't want us out there."

Lance tilts his head, takes off his sunglasses and smiles brilliantly at John. John takes a slight step backwards, because damn, this kid has some weird eyes. "I wanted you out there," he says, and John hesitates, because Lance's voice is changed, it's different. It's not so earnest anymore, it's more… John blinks, and his eyes widen slightly. This kid wants him. He wants him! And what the fuck is that about?

John recovers, laughs softly, says, "You're about the only one," and Lance isn't looking away from him, which is making John pretty fucking uncomfortable, so he says, "I gotta go," when he really doesn't, but yeah, he really does, because Lance won't stop staring.

Lance nods, "Okay. Well." He steps forward and John steps back because Lance is coming towards him, his hand reaching for John, and John's petrified this kid is going to push him against the bus and kiss him, and then what the fuck will he do?

But Lance doesn't do any of that. He takes John's phone from his belt and opens it up, punching in a few numbers. Lance's phone rings and he hangs John's up. "There. Last called. That's my number." He smiles slowly, "I have yours now, too, but I'm going to wait for you to call me." He closes the phone, stepping closer and John's back is pressed against the bus, so he can't go anywhere, and now he can't look away from this kid's eyes, and yeah, they're still weird, but when John can see them up close, they're kind of a cool weird. He sees the corners of Lance's eyes crinkle up and he looks away to Lance's mouth, and sees a smile, sees Lance say, "Call me," then watches Lance back away from him, taking four steps backwards before smirking at John and putting on his sunglasses, turning and jogging to his own bus.

John wets his lips with his tongue, doesn't move as Lance boards his bus and the bus pulls away. He reaches for his phone, flipping it open. He scrolls through to his last called numbers and his finger hovers over the button to delete the number. He hesitates, looks back up at the bus turning out of the parking lot, then punches in "Lance" and hits save. Hey, you never know.

*****

John considers calling the kid, he takes out his phone on more than one occasion, but never goes through with it. He's never sure why; he's almost positive it's because he's not gay, and he's pretty sure that Lance is. And he certainly doesn't want to be gay, so calling the kid would be a waste of time for both of them, it would only end badly when John eventually tells him hey, thanks, but no thanks.

John has dreams. Dreams about weird green eyes and a deep voice that wakes him up in the morning. He has dreams about a boy with spiky blond hair and a pair of sunglasses that make him look sexy when really, he should look dorky. He wakes up hard, and as much as he tries to convince himself that it was Adrienne he was dreaming about, he knows differently when he jerks off and the flash of a smile he sees belongs to the kid with the weird eyes, and he comes harder than he ever has.

So maybe he isn't as straight as he thought. Maybe he should give this kid a call and see if he could get Lance to show him a thing or two, maybe he can act like he's done this before and at least get a free blowjob out of the deal. A blowjob's a blowjob, right? A mouth's a mouth, it doesn't matter who it belongs to.

And hell, John's not even sure that's what the kid meant when he said to call him. Maybe he wants to get to know John, maybe he wants to see how his mind works, why John's so fucked up that he can't write a happy song if a gun was pointed to his head. Maybe Lance wants to see if John can introduce him to Adrienne, because god, would the two of them be pretty together. Hell, maybe Lance just wants to see if John could score him some good pot, since John's pretty sure that even though Lance is a billion times more famous than he is, John still has the best connections when it comes to drugs.

So John doesn't call. He keeps Lance's number on his phone and when he gets a new phone, he carefully enters Lance's number again, not because he's going to call him, but because if Lance calls John, John wants to make sure he knows who's calling so he answers.

But John isn't going to call.

*****

_Hard Rock Café, 2002_

John's drunk. He's drunk and he's playing anyway, but he doesn't think anyone can tell. Because he's a professional, dammit, he can play while drunk, he can play while high, he can play while fucked up. But he's thinking that maybe he shouldn't play while drunk, because he feels jumpy. He feels like someone is staring at him, which no fucking shit, of course someone is staring at him. Hundreds of people are staring at him; it's a fucking concert.

But it feels different. The hair on the back of his neck is standing up, it's like someone is staring and not looking away. And that's just fucked up because there's two other guys in his band, and the fucking touring musicians, whoever the hell is staring at him needs to stop immediately because John's about two seconds away from fucking up the lyrics, and while it wouldn't be the first time he did that, he'd rather not do it now and let whoever it is staring at him think it's because of them.

He manages to get through the song and picks up his beer - not that he needs it - and takes a long swallow, finishing it. He gets a different guitar and strums it a few times, trying to be all suave and look through the hair over his face at the crowd, scanning the faces, trying to figure out who the fuck is staring.

He can't figure it out, so he says fuck it and starts to play the next song. The hair on his neck is still standing up, but he pushes the feeling out of his mind and just plays. He closes his eyes and sings and when he opens them, the lights are on the crowd and they're singing along with him and thank fucking god, because he looks at the bar and he sees Lance, and the words go right out of his head.

John hasn't seen him for a couple years, not beyond pictures anyway, because Lance is still really fucking famous and his picture is everywhere, but John's sure that it's Lance. Lance is on a barstool, one foot on the bottom rung and one on the floor. His elbows are on the bar, he's leaning back, his tee shirt pulled across his chest. There's a glass dangling from the fingers of one hand and Lance is watching John like he wants to fuck him. When John looks up and meets Lance's eyes, Lance starts to smile slowly, but John doesn't see the end result, because the lights are back on the band, and John's momentarily blinded from the sudden brightness, so he closes his eyes, listens to the crowd to find his place, and starts to sing again.

John's eyes keep moving back to the bar, but he can't see Lance again. He's wondering if he imagined it. Maybe John was just too drunk, maybe he's seeing things. He's seeing Lance in his dreams once in a while, why the fuck wouldn't he imagine him in an actual place? He pushes the feeling out of his head and motions for another beer and when his guitar tech brings him the bottle with the next guitar change, John chugs half of it before looking back at the crowd and grinning.

After the show, John runs backstage and grabs a towel, running it over his face and arms. He has another beer in his hand already and he vaguely thinks he should stop drinking, but then someone comes to the door and John looks up, and this is definitely not a mirage or a figment of his imagination, Lance is definitely standing there staring at him and the hair on the back of John's neck is standing up again, so maybe it was Lance that made John jumpy on stage.

Rob notices Lance then and grins at him. Rob remembers him from Wango Tango. Rob remembers everyone he meets, it's a weird thing that John's noticed about Rob through the years, but man, it really comes in handy when John runs into someone he knows he should know, but really has no fucking idea who it is. But now Rob's talking to Lance, and that's good, because then maybe John won't have to talk to Lance, and that would be perfect, because John has no idea what he would even say to him, because John thinks that "hey, how about getting out of my fucking dreams you asshole" isn't really polite and also not something that Lance can help.

John sees the photographer and knows that he's going to have to talk to Lance, because the venue wants pictures, they want to brag about the people who come here to play and about the random people who just happen to be in the crowd. But when John stands up and moves to where Lance is standing, Lance smiles at him, and John thinks that Lance didn't "just happen" to be anywhere. John thinks that Lance knows exactly where he is and why he's there.

Lance puts his arm around John's waist for the picture and John forces a smile and doesn't think about the way Lance's hand rests on his lower back. John's own arm is behind Lance, but not touching him, John's brain hasn't quite caught up to what's going on here right now and he doesn't want to touch Lance inappropriately. The flash goes off and John steps away from Lance like he's been burned. Lance doesn't seem to notice, or if he does, he keeps on smiling, and that makes John scowl. Because if he didn't notice, fuck him, he should have, and if he did notice, he shouldn't be smiling about the fact that John doesn't want to be touched. Lance should be pissed off. He should be angry.

Rob spots someone else that he knows and wanders off. Mike is doing what Mike always does, and that's spend more time talking to the touring musicians than his own band mates, so now Lance is turning to him and oh shit, what the hell is John supposed to do now?

John turns away. He turns away and goes back to the couch and sits down, picking up his beer and ignoring Lance and his heavy gaze. John wants to be left alone, but maybe someone should have told Lance that, because Lance is standing in front of him, his arms crossed over his chest and looking down at John.

"You didn't call," Lance says, and John says, "nope," and takes another swallow of his beer. Lance is undeterred, though, John knows that look. Adrienne gives him that look a lot when he's supposed to be doing something like saying "I love you, too," and he doesn't. She just stands there and stares at him, her gaze unwavering until he either relents and says it back or gets up and leaves. Maybe John should hook Lance and Adrienne up, they seem to have a lot in common. "Why didn't you call?" Lance asks him and John's not paying attention, so he misses the question.

"Huh?" John asks.

"Why didn't you call?" Lance repeats.

John scowls, "You had my number, phones work both ways." He tilts his beer to his lips again, looking away from Lance.

"I told you I wasn't going to call," Lance tells him, sitting down on the couch. John looks over and Lance is staring at his fingers. John follows Lance's gaze and they're nice fingers, long, the nails aren't chewed down, and when Lance turns his hand over to rub his palm, John notices they don't have calluses like John's own fingers, which are chewed up from years of playing the guitar. Lance has nice hands.

"You have nice hands," John says and then blinks, because what? Lance looks up at him and he's starting to smile again, and John knows that smile, he recognizes that smile from Wango Tango next to the bus, and John has a feeling he's screwed a little bit, because he's drunk and he's thinking about Lance's hands, and he's just a little bit horny because he hasn't been laid in a couple weeks, and Lance has a really nice smile, and really nice hands, and really nice eyes, even if they are a little weird, and John is pretty sure that if Lance wanted to put those hands on him, John would let him.

"Thanks," Lance says softly, ducking his head and blushing. He's quiet for a minute, then says, "Hey, where are y'all staying?" and John shrugs, and calls to Rob and Rob yells a name of a hotel back and Lance nods. "That's a nice place," he says and looks up at John, "you have your own room?" and John shakes his head, because what does Lance think they are, successful enough for that?

"No, we have a suite," John says. "All three of us."

"Come back to my place," Lance tells him.

"All of us?" John asks stupidly.

He's rewarded with a deep laugh and John feels the rumble right into the center of his chest. "No," Lance says. "Just you."

John wrinkles his forehead and stares at this kid. And he tries to process everything that's going on in his brain, because he thinks Lance just subtly propositioned him and he really, really wishes he weren't drunk, because this is kind of an important decision he has to make here.

John says, "You have a house in Orlando?" He's not stalling, not really.

"Yeah," Lance nods. "I live here part time. LA, too."

John shrugs and doesn't really have anything to say to that, so he's quiet. He can still feel Lance staring and he really wishes Lance would knock it off, but he can't really tell him that. Or, he could, but John's making an effort not be rude here.

"You gonna come or not?" Lance asks, and John mind flashes to Lance's mouth on his cock, John coming like it was the last time he ever would. He closes his eyes and says, "no," but what really comes out of his mouth is "yes," and Lance grins like he's lighting the world with his smile and stands up, waiting for John.

John came to the venue right from the hotel in a van with Mike and Rob. Lance came to the venue from his house in his 4Runner and when he unlocks it and John gets in, for a second, John thinks that it's actually his car. Except Lance keeps his cleaner. A lot cleaner.

They don't talk on the ride to Lance's house, which is perfectly okay with John, because he's silently freaking out. This is big. This is huge. He might let another guy touch his dick, when the only guy who's ever touched his dick was John himself. John looks at Lance's hands on the steering wheel, he sees how his fingers wrap around the wheel and he closes his eyes, picturing them wrapped around his dick. Lance does have nice hands, John thinks it might feel good, Lance would know how to touch him, Lance was a guy, he knew that it didn't always have to be nice and gentle, that sometimes a guy likes a little bit of pressure, too. He's tried to get Adrienne to realize that, but every time he put his hand over hers on his dick, she'd either protest that she knew what she was doing or she'd stop altogether and let him do the work. And what the hell fun was him doing all the work when she was right there?

John wonders if Lance will suck his dick. He wonders if he could ask him to do that. Because John has been staring at Lance's mouth for a couple minutes now, and he thinks that he could be into that. Lance has a nice mouth. It forms words very nicely and when he smiles, he has a lot of teeth, which is a stupid thing to think, but John's in a stupid place right now, so it's okay. But Lance smiles with his whole mouth, not a tiny little fake smile, but an earnest, larger than life smile, and he's smiled like that for John once already tonight, and John kind of liked it, so if sucking John's dick will get Lance to smile like that again for him, well, who is John to deny that?

They're at Lance's house before John is really finished thinking and he has a few moments of blind panic as he gets out of the truck and follows Lance to the house. Because what the hell is he doing? This is so not how the night was supposed to go, and John is drunk and that's never a good thing for when he goes home with people, because he's fucked a lot of people and doesn't remember their names the next morning, and with the way Lance is looking at him, John has a feeling he'll remember Lance's name and that is just not good. Not good at all.

"Come on in," Lance says and pushes open the door to his house and Jesus Christ is Lance's house fucking huge. John steps into the foyer and looks down the hallway and he thinks that his entire house could fit into the living room of Lance's place. He stands in the entranceway awkwardly and shoves his hands into his jeans pockets. He really wishes he had a beer and then remembers that he's supposed to stop drinking tonight and bites the inside of his cheek to will the craving to go away.

Lance tosses his keys on the table and starts to walk though the house, not looking back, assuming John is going to follow. So John follows Lance, surreptitiously looking in the doorways of the rooms of Lance's house. Lance flicks on lights and they're standing in a kitchen and John practically has a hard on just from this room. He walks in and moves around the island to the stove and turns to Lance, "This is your fucking kitchen?" He looks at the empty pizza box on the counter and opens the fridge with is empty except for a couple six packs of beer and some condiments. "Do you even cook?"

Lance shakes his head, "No. Mostly take out." He smiles faintly and crosses his arms over his chest, staring at John. "You cook?" John nods and helps himself to a beer. "You can cook breakfast then," Lance says, and John really wishes he didn't just take a sip of beer, because now he's choking on it and wow, how suave is he? Lance just smiles and takes the bottle of out of John's hand, drinking from it and turning away. "Grab yourself another one, we'll sit in the living room."

John passes on the beer and just follows Lance through the house. Lance turns on a lamp and the room brightens somewhat, but not enough for John not to think of mood lighting. Lance is totally trying to seduce him. John looks at Lance who is now sprawled out on the couch. It's totally working.

John sits next to him, but with space between them and Lance smiles that half smile of his and doesn't say anything. He swallows more of the beer and then leans forward and puts the bottle on the coffee table in front of him. He reaches out and puts his hand on John's thigh and John looks down at Lance's hand and clasps his own hands together so he doesn't touch Lance.

"You should relax," Lance tells him, his voice an octave deeper and how exactly is John supposed to relax when Lance's porn voice is washing over him and Lance's hand is on his thigh? Lance moves closer and his voice is at John's ear, low and breathy and goddamn if it's not making John hard. "I don't bite," Lance says, and nips at John's earlobe, "much."

John really doesn't know what he's supposed to do here. Is he supposed to kiss Lance? Because he really doesn't want to. He's mostly okay with Lance touching his dick, and he's kind of okay with Lance sucking his dick, but he's really not okay with actually kissing Lance. And yeah, that makes him an asshole, he supposes, but whatever, he's been an asshole his whole life, why should this be any different? But he has to make this decision, because Lance's hand is moving over his shirt and across his chest and his mouth is moving from John's ear down his neck and now over his jaw, and in a few seconds, Lance's mouth is going to be right next to John's, and John has to figure out if he wants to kiss him or not.

Lance shifts and his hand slides up John's chest to his neck, gently turning John's face towards his. John shakes his head and puts his hand on Lance's forearm, squeezing it slightly. "No," he mumbles and immediately Lance stops. Because Lance is not an asshole and if John says no, Lance is going to comply.

Lance blinks owlishly. "No?" He starts to sit back, "okay."

John shakes his head, "No. It's… just no kissing."

Lance's forehead wrinkles and he tilts his head and says, "What are you like _Pretty Woman_ or something?" and John doesn't really get that reference, it must be one of those gay movies that he hasn't seen, so he says, "what?" and Lance shakes his head and says, "Nevermind, fine, no kissing."

John's not sure if Lance is disappointed with that or not, he can't tell from the tone of Lance's voice, he's sure if he knew Lance longer than an hour, he would be able to figure it out, but the truth is, he doesn't know Lance that long, he talked to him for a grand total of about fifteen minutes before Lance invited him here and put his mouth on John's neck, so John decides that he doesn't care if Lance is upset about the no kissing thing, because Lance will still get him off and that's all that's important.

John doesn't really have to do much work. Lance straddles his legs and kisses along John's skin and John mostly just has to tilt his head back and close his eyes and feel. And Lance does feel pretty fucking good, and he knows Lance can tell that John's enjoying himself, because Lance is moving his hips on John's dick, and even through his jeans, John can feel the pressure and wants more of it.

Lance slides down his body and pushes John's shirt up, covering one of John's nipples with his mouth and John hisses. His hands are clenched in fists at his sides, he can feel the nails digging into his palms. Lance takes his time, licking and biting and sucking and kissing John's torso and John bites his lip to keep from begging Lance to just touch him now, please. Lance knows, though, because Lance opens John's jeans and deftly slides his hands inside and John moans when Lance's perfect fucking fingers curl around his dick.

John must have lost track of some time after Lance touched him, because suddenly his jeans are around his ankles and he can feel Lance's breath on his cock, and he opens his eyes and looks down and Lance looks up at him with those big fucking weird eyes and smirks before his tongue comes out of his mouth and laps at the tip of John's dick. John groans and his hand unclenches and moves to Lance's hair and Lance pauses to push his head into John's hand before taking John completely in his mouth.

John moans and drops his head back on the couch again. Lance uses his tongue like its sole purpose is just to suck dicks and John wonders if he can introduce Lance to Adrienne because Lance sure could teach her a few things about giving head. Lance finds the perfect balance between sucking and stroking and the perfect mix of pressure and release and his mouth is the perfect temperature for this and he uses the perfect amount of saliva and all this is just completely stupid shit, but goddamn it makes for one incredible blowjob.

John's hand in Lance's hair is holding on tight. He's forcing Lance to go faster, tugging on Lance's hair, up, down, up, down and Lance doesn't resist, he just lets John do whatever the fuck he wants to do. Lance keeps up, he opens his mouth and his throat and John shoves his dick in Lance's mouth as far as it can go and when he hits the back of Lance's throat, he comes unexpectedly, his body spasming, and Lance gags just a little bit and John realizes that he never let go of Lance's hair, and he somehow manages to get his fingers to comply with that and Lance pulls back slightly, his mouth still on John's cock and he swallows everything John shoots, and then takes a few minutes to lick John clean while all the while John can only moan and let his hips jerk at every touch of Lance's tongue.

Lance sits back on his heels and brings a hand to his lips to wipe the corner of his mouth and John looks at him through half-lidded eyes. The kid really is beautiful, John thinks, and has a really great fucking mouth. Lance is sort of smiling at him, and John realizes that Lance wants him to repay the favor, but hell no, John isn't going to do that, he wouldn't even know how to do that, and this is why he never called the kid, because now he has to tell him no.

Lance doesn't make him say it, though, Lance must be more intuitive than John is and he can see it in John's eyes. Lance's face falls slightly and he says, "I need a beer, you want?" and John just nods and watches Lance go to the kitchen, before pulling up his pants and closing them.

Lance comes back into the room and hands John a beer. Lance's bottle is already half empty and John wonders how Lance doesn't just want to go and brush his teeth after all that, but he doesn't ask. There's just some things you don't bring up. Lance sits back down next to John, and John looks over at him to see him looking down at his beer, and Lance isn't exactly pouting, but it's close, so John sighs softly, tells himself to be less of an asshole and moves just a bit closer to Lance, their arms and thighs pressed against each other.

Lance looks up at him and smiles faintly and John smiles back and says, "Thanks," and then laughs softly, says, "thanks," again, "that was seriously the best blowjob of my life," and Lance laughs and ducks his head, and even John has to admit that when this kid blushes, there ain't no one prettier.

Lance leans his head against John's shoulder and yawns. He mumbles something about going to bed, and he gets up, pulling John to his feet and dragging him to the bedroom. Lance undresses and John just stands there awkwardly until Lance says, "look, we're just going to sleep, okay?" and John nods and undresses, sliding into the sheets next to Lance.

Lance curls up next to him, his head on John's chest and he falls asleep immediately. John absently strokes Lance's hair with his fingers, and stares at the ceiling. This was just so wrong of him, this was a huge mistake and he's an asshole.

He falls asleep and wakes up in the morning before Lance does. Lance is lying on his stomach, his face turned towards John's. His back is perfect and John reaches out and runs his fingers over Lance's spine lightly before getting out of bed and getting dressed. He looks back at Lance still sleeping and goes downstairs.

Through the hallway and into the kitchen. He pauses briefly, remembers Lance's smile as he told him he could cook breakfast. This is his chance to redeem himself. He could cook breakfast for the kid and maybe walk out of here with his head held high.

John passes through the kitchen and lets himself out the front door.

*****

_Super Bowl 2003 (Tampa Bay vs. Oakland)_

John can't figure out why his band got chosen to play the Super Bowl weekend, but they did and here he is, tailgating in the fucking parking lot. He wanted to leave, he wanted to get the hell out of here and beat the traffic, but Rob had to go and be all… Robbish and make friends, so now he's drinking. And the game's starting in a half hour so he has to figure out if they're staying for that or leaving. He really, really hopes they leave, because on the best day he doesn't give a rats ass about football, and it's not like Buffalo is any fucking good that they ever had a shot at being in the Super Bowl, and that's the only team he'd bother watching.

But of fucking course Mike now wants to stay for the game, and two can't leave without the third, and Rob's on board because they get to watch it from a box suite where there's free food and alcohol so John can't do anything but follow them. He's already kind of drunk, so he figures he can manage to get all the way drunk on someone else's tab, and maybe the game won't be so bad after all.

The suite is way nicer than John expects and there's a bar in the back of it and it's stocked with top shelf alcohol, none of that Bankers Club shit in this suite. John feels like a fucking traitor ordering a vodka and cranberry juice and getting Absolut vodka instead of the shit that comes in a gallon jug and costs all of about eight bucks, but he orders it and drinks it and then tries something else, because vodka and cranberry juice is kind of a gay drink, John thinks, it's not something a real man would drink, not like Jack and Coke, or tequila with just about anything. So he orders a Jack and Coke and drinks it while standing at the bar, checking out the waitress that's just come into the room. He thinks she's pretty fucking hot, and he's wondering if they have a policy about not going home with customers.

He catches her eye and smiles at her in a manner which he really hopes isn't leering, but with all that he drank this afternoon, it could be leering, but she smiles back and comes towards him with her tray of pigs in a blanket and she might be swaying her hips a bit more than before just for John's benefit, but that might also be the effects of the alcohol in his brain.

He's smiling down at her, being cool and suave and pretty fucking debonair if he does say so himself, when the door opens and more people come in. John glances up, not out of curiosity, but more out of habit, wanting to know who's in the room, and he stops talking mid-sentence. He momentarily forgets the waitress is standing in front of him and when he remembers, she's already turning away to go make nice with someone else. Someone who's probably way more cool and suave and debonair than John would ever be.

John is trying to figure out how he can get Rob and Mike's attention and get them the hell out of there before Lance fucking Bass, who just walked in the door, sees them. John's motioning to Rob as subtly as he can, but Rob's not looking at him, Rob's grinning at Lance and the guy with Lance - who John really thinks he should know, too, but has no fucking clue - and John sees Lance notice Rob and narrow his eyes slightly before turning and looking around the room. Lance's eyes find him and John doesn't really think he can coolly turn back to the bar and pretend he didn't see Lance, and just once, just one fucking time, John wishes he would be fucking stone cold sober when he ran into Lance, because this really isn't fucking fair that he's always drunk and Lance always isn't.

Lance makes small talk with Rob for a few minutes before excusing himself and coming to the bar to stand next to John. John's not looking at him, he's leaning on the bar, having ordered another Jack and Coke. Lance smiles at the bartender, says, "Hey, I'll have a vodka and cranberry juice," and John snorts, because that seems about right.

Lance waits until he gets his drink and the bartender walks away before talking to John. He doesn't look at him, his fingers are on the stirrer in his glass and he's making a mini-whirlpool in the red liquid. John's eyes are on the liquid in the glass, hypnotized by the motion. Lance says to him, "You didn't call," and John nods, "nope," and Lance must get angry because he stops stirring and John can see his fingers tense on the straw.

"Why don't you ever call me?" Lance asks, his voice tight.

John rolls his eyes slightly, "Hey, you have my fucking phone number, if you want to talk to me so fucking bad, you call me."

Lance turns and John looks at him. Lance's weird eyes are flashing and it's kind of cool how they darken right in front of John's eyes. His voice is level, soft. "I told you at Wango Tango I wasn't going to call you."

"Oh, that's right," John says, as if he's just remembering, but there's sarcasm laced under his words. "Well, then, I guess I just didn't want to call." He shrugs, "again, you could have called me."

"And what would I have said, John?" Lance asks him. He reaches for his phone off of his belt and opens it up, mimicking talking on it. "Hey, John, it's Lance. Remember me? Yeah, the guy that was good enough to suck your fucking dick, but not good enough to stick around the next morning for?"

John hisses and reaches for Lance's wrist, pulling the phone away from his ear and says, "Shut the fuck up! You want everyone to hear you?"

Lance jerks his hand from John and narrows his eyes, "I don't give a shit who hears me, John!"

"Yeah, well, I fucking do, so shut the fuck up."

"No shit!" Lance says to him. "I had no idea you wouldn't want anyone to know! Wow, color me surprised. John Rzeznik, homophobic asshole." He snorts, shaking his head and turning. "Whatever. Point taken. Have a nice fucking life." Lance turns from him and goes back to his friend, talking to him for a minute before heading towards the door. Good fucking riddance, John thinks.

Rob glances over at him and raises his eyebrows. John shrugs, but Rob comes over to him anyway. "What the hell did you say to him?"

"Nothing," John says, "why?"

Rob shrugs, "I dunno. He was talking to you, came back over to Joey," _Joey_ , John thinks, _yes_ , "and then split."

John shrugs, "Whatever, dude, I just said hi."

Rob gives him a look like he doesn't believe a word John is saying and John stares him down until Rob looks away. "Okay, just making sure I didn't have to apologize for your behavior." John scowls at him and Rob laughs, "hey, game's about to start, you gonna sit and watch it?"

John shrugs, "Yeah, maybe. Let me get another drink."

"You do know they have waitresses, right?" Rob asks him and John automatically looks around for the girl he was talking to before.

"Whatever, maybe I'll go get some air," John says, "You can't smoke in here, can you?"

Rob shrugs, "I have no clue."

John shakes his head, "Nevermind. I'm going back to the bus, sleep off some of this."

"Okay. Catch ya later," Rob says and John downs his drink and heads out the door that Lance just left. John wishes he waited a few more minutes, because if he has to run into Lance, he's not going to be happy.

Homophobic asshole. Whatever. John is not a homophobic asshole. He's an asshole, he'll admit that any day of the week, but he's not homophobic. Hell, he let Lance suck his dick! If he was homophobic - which he certainly is not - he would have told Lance to go fuck off a long time ago, he wouldn't have gone to his house and slept in his bed.

He wouldn't have hesitated in the kitchen the next morning and considered cooking Lance breakfast for those five seconds. And he certainly wouldn't have gone home and showered and jerked off to the image of Lance's mouth around his cock. And he never would have taken out his phone and thought about calling Lance if he was a homophobic asshole. He would have deleted Lance's number and gone on with his life.

John reaches his bus and takes out his phone. He scrolls through to the "L's" and presses "send" when he gets to Lance's number. The phone rings four times before going to voice mail. John hangs up and dials again. And again, and again. He knows that Lance has his phone turned on, he knows Lance is the kind of guy who never turns his phone off, not even at night, so he knows that Lance is ignoring his call. But that's fine. John can keep dialing. Hell, he has the entire duration of the Super Bowl to dial Lance's number. Either Lance is going to have to answer his call or shut off his phone. It's Lance's choice.

Lance picks up after John's called eleven times. "What the fuck do you want? Leave a fucking message," Lance says.

"Hello," John says calmly, smirking a little.

"Fuck you," Lance says.

"That's nice. This is the reason I never called," John says.

"What do you want?" Lance asks him and his voice is tired.

"I'm not a homophobic asshole," John says. "That pissed me off."

"Fine," Lance tells him, "you're not, can I go now?"

"No," John says, and he really should say yes. Yes, Lance you can go, but he doesn't, he says, "No," then, "Where are you?"

"What?"

"Where are you?" John asks him. "Is that a hard question? How much vodka was in that drink?"

"Fuck you," Lance says again and John almost smiles. It's kind of hot when this kid curses in that southern accent of his.

"My bus is in the parking lot, you should come hang out."

There's a long pause. A really long pause. It stretches out and John wonders if he lost the connection, so he pulls the phone from his ear and looks at the screen. He still has five bars and the time is ticking on the connected call, so he puts the phone back to his ear and says, "Lance?"

"You want me to come to your bus," Lance says flatly. "What for?"

John shrugs and sits back, "I dunno. Just because I'm bored."

Lance laughs and it's bitter. "And you want me to suck your dick again?"

John considers lying to him and saying the thought hadn't crossed his mind, but he's really not in the mood to have to remember lies and convoluted stories, so instead he says, "Well, you were really fucking good at it," and Lance calls him an asshole again and hangs up on him.

John laughs and tosses his phone into his bunk. He peels off his shirt and leans into the bunk to find a clean one. He's feeling pretty good, it's funny how bickering with Lance put him in a good mood. He takes it as a good sign, since whenever he bickers with Adrienne, he just wants to shove her head through the wall. Of course, Lance called him an asshole and hung up on him, so he's pretty sure it wasn't as good for Lance as it was for him. Oh well, John thinks, that's not his problem, that's Lance's.

There's a knock on the door of the bus and John turns towards away from his bunk, a clean shirt in his hand and moves to the door. It opens before he takes two steps and Lance is coming onto the bus. John bites back a smile and says instead, "Hey, come on in."

"Fuck you," Lance says, "you invited me."

John raises his eyebrows, "nice language, you kiss your mother with that mouth?"

Lance shrugs, leans against the kitchen counter and appraises John. "Sure don't kiss you, do I?"

John almost laughs, but turns away so Lance doesn't see his smile. "No, you do not." John looks down at his shirt to figure out how it goes on, and suddenly, Lance is pressed up against his back, and woah, was this supposed to happen? Okay, yeah, it was, John thinks, why else would he ask Lance to come over? Of course, Lance did hang up on him and call him an asshole, so John's not really sure what Lance has planned, he could be reaching around him for the knife lying on the counter to stab him. John drops his shirt and pushes the knife back a bit and says, "Um."

Lance's voice is low, his mouth pressed in between John's shoulder blades. "Oh, come on, John, you want me to suck your dick."

"You think I'm an asshole," John points out and shivers slightly at Lance's breath on his skin.

"You are," Lance says. "But you have a nice dick, so I'll do you a favor and suck it."

John laughs and it kind of comes out like a groan, because this is not what he expected from Lance. He's not really sure what he expected, but he certainly did not expect Lance to curse this much, he didn't expect Lance to be so forward with what he wanted. He expected him to be quieter, shyer, more southern belle, which is really fucking stupid, because Lance sure as shit ain't a southern belle, but with those big eyes and that smile, he sure could be.

John turns and Lance and those eyes are staring up at him and John blinks and his breath catches in his throat. God. What the hell is going on with him? He must be drunker than he thought, because he almost closed his eyes and leaned forward to press his lips against Lance's. He shakes his head slightly and Lance smiles that half smile of his and whispers, "No kissing, right?" and John nods, "yeah, right," he says, "no kissing."

Lance shrugs and presses his lips to John's skin right under his jaw. John tilts his head back and leans his hands on the counter and Lance's hands are pressing into his sides, his palms flat on John's skin, and sliding up his stomach and to his chest. Lance's mouth is hot on his throat and John moans softly. Lance pulls back and John blinks and looks down at him. Lance steps back, pulling John with him and pushing him onto the couch.

John falls on the couch, half naked and sprawled. Lance kneels on the ground between his legs and reaches for John's waistband, flicking open the button of his jeans with his thumb and freeing John from his boxers. Lance leans down to slide his wet tongue along John's stomach and his fingers hook under the waist of John's pants, "off," murmurs Lance against his skin and John complies, lifting his hips for Lance.

John lets Lance do whatever he wants. John knows how this is going to go, Lance is going to tease him for a bit and then put his mouth over his cock and John's hips are going to rise off the couch and he's going to bite his bottom lip to keep from crying out and his fingers will find their way into Lance's hair and Lance will give him the best blowjob of his life.

So John's relaxed. He's sighing softly as Lance's tongue flicks over the tip of his dick and he smiles to himself when his dick is fully in Lance's mouth, and it's just wet heat, hot and steaming and John wonders how long he can keep Lance around for the sole purpose of his mouth. He thinks probably not that long, since Lance kind of hates him.

Lance's hand wraps around John's cock and he slides it up and down, jerking John off in time with his mouth and his fingers are slick on John and John knows that you can't really just go out and find someone to practice this on, but somehow Lance must have, because goddamn is he good at this. Lance nudges John's legs, and John's legs open on their own, Lance's fingers digging into his thighs.

Lance moves his hand, slick with spit, over John's dick and under to cup his balls and his mouth follows and John groans, lifting his hips off the couch. Fuck, fuck, fuck, John thinks, and he thinks he's might be saying that out loud, but he's not sure, so he tries to figure out if he can hear his voice over the roaring in his head, but then Lance's hand is underneath him and his finger is slick with Lance's own spit and what the hell is he doing, this isn't part of the deal, Lance isn't supposed to slide his finger inside John's body, but that's exactly what Lance is doing and John tries to stop him, looks down and says, "hey, wait a min…" but then Lance bends his finger, crooks it at exactly the right angle and John sees stars behind his suddenly closed eyes and okay, Lance is allowed to do that.

Lance is moving faster, his lips are covering John's dick and his head is bobbing up and adown and Jesus Christ, this is fucking good, Lance's mouth and Lance's finger and just _Lance_. Lance puts his tongue flat against the underside of John's dick and slides his mouth slowly down from the tip to the base. John's head falls back on the top of the couch and he thinks that he can't take much more of this, because Lance's finger is pressing exactly where it's supposed to be pressing, and John's not sure why he's surprised, because Lance is a fucking god, and he knows shit like this. But then Lance's tongue is suddenly not on John's dick anymore, it's licking his balls and John groans, and then it's moving lower and oh my god, he's not going to do this, but he does, he slides his tongue inside John, right next to his finger and John thinks _there is no way I'm kissing him now_ , and he comes hard, spasming against Lance's mouth, and he feels the wetness on his chest, because this time Lance's mouth isn't over him, it's under him and his tongue is in him and god, is John ever going to stop coming, because it doesn't feel like it at all.

Lance's hand is flat on John's stomach and when John stops quivering, Lance sits back and wipes his mouth and John's eyes open partway to look down at him and his eyes are drawn to Lance's mouth and as he watches, Lance licks his lips and sits up. John is still trying to catch his breath, so he doesn't move, so when Lance stands up John's eyes are directly level with Lance's waist and he can see Lance is hard, he can see the bulge beneath Lance's jeans. His mind is racing, he's trying to figure out if he could actually touch Lance's dick, he's never touched another guy's dick before, but maybe he should do this for Lance, since Lance just had his tongue in John's ass.

But he doesn't even get the option. Lance takes a step back, says, "see ya. I'm not going to tell you to call me, because I know you won't." He turns and heads out the door of the bus, and if John wasn't sitting on the couch completely naked and sticky, he would wonder if Lance was even there at all.

*****

John considers calling him this time. He really does. He even opens his phone and scrolls to Lance's number. He never follows through, though. He tells himself it's because Adrienne is right in the next room, or because Rob's going to be at his place in ten minutes to pick him up, or because hey, he's not gay, what the hell does he need Lance for anyway? but he never really convinces himself any of those things are true.

Except the gay thing.

So John doesn't call Lance. He doesn't call him and he doesn't think about him, ever. Except that he totally thinks about him all the time. And it's not so bad when he's eating breakfast or reading the paper, because hey, maybe Lance likes Cheerios or is reading the stock report just like John is. It's bad when he thinks about him during sex with Adrienne.

John used to think that he and Adrienne had a pretty good sex life. She was flexible, she's willing to do pretty much anything John wants to do, and once she even offered to let John tie her up. John really wanted to do that one, and possibly shove a gag in her mouth so she would just shut the fuck up for once, but he decided against it because he was pretty sure Adrienne would want to be untied at some point, and it would be really easy for John to leave her there for days and not miss her at all.

But then John met Lance. And suddenly, Adrienne didn't do anything right. She used too much spit during a blowjob, she didn't use enough. She sure as hell didn't use enough pressure during a hand job, John thought that before he met Lance, but now it was amplified, as if he was justified in his thinking. And she wanted to kiss him too often.

John had gone out and rented _Pretty Woman_ after Lance made that reference the first time they hung out. John wanted to know what Lance was talking about, and even though the movie starred Julia Roberts and was totally not a movie that straight guys would ever like in a million years, he needed to know what the hell Lance meant by that comment.

And he wishes that were it. He wishes that he felt kissing was too intimate, that it was something reserved for people who meant something to each other, who were maybe in love. But John's an asshole and he just didn't want to kiss Lance because that would mean that he wasn't as straight as he claimed to be.

John tries to forget that Lance had his tongue in John's ass, and that right there proves that he's not exactly walking a straight line.

But he kisses Adrienne. And she wants to kiss him too much. God, she's always touching him, running her hand over his arm, turning his face towards hers for a good morning kiss or a goodbye kiss or a goodnight kiss. And she's constantly hugging him and kissing the side of his neck or his cheek. She doesn't just leave him alone when he's trying to do something like read the fucking paper, she always has to be touching him and kissing him and John wishes that he could just tell her, "Look, kissing is for people in love and I'm not really sure I'm in love, so how about you knock it off?" But he doesn't do that. He sighs, kisses her and goes on his way.

But the blowjob thing is something he can't really ignore anymore. Because he closes his eyes and he sees Lance while Adrienne is on her knees in front of him, and it's not like he's picturing Lance giving him head, it's that he's wishing Lance were, because he's so fucking good at it, and Adrienne is so fucking not.

And John kind of wants her to do that finger thing, too, but how the hell do you even bring something like that up?

But Adrienne's pretty open, John thinks. Adrienne wanted him to buy a fucking swing to hang from the bedroom ceiling, she'd probably understand that hey, guys have prostates, they like when they're stimulated and she's really way too fucking stupid to think that John let some pop star stick his finger - and tongue, _god_ , his tongue - up his ass.

So the next time Adrienne comes over and wants to have sex, John pushes her head down and she goes willingly in front of him, her fingers deftly opening his jeans, her head already bobbing up and down on his cock.

John's decided the best approach is to start coaching her on the easy stuff first. And since he has no idea how to tell her to use less spit, so he fists his hands in her hair and goes for the pressure.

"Uhh, baby, yeah," John moans, his eyes shut. "Use your hand," Adrienne moves her fingers to grip him loosely, stroking him. "Harder, harder," John says, reaching down and closing his fingers around hers.

"You want to do this?" she says, sitting back on her heels.

John sighs and looks down at her, "Come on, Ade, just… it feels good. Harder, you won't break it."

She sort of rolls her eyes at him and goes back to what she was doing, her fingers tight around his cock, and yes, that's it, harder, harder, faster. John rests his head on the back of the couch and she mumbles around him, "you like that?" and he groans in response. She seems to like the noises she's getting from him, so she says, "What else, Johnny? Tell me what you want."

John's breath catches for a second because this is his chance. He didn't even have to ease her into it, she asked, it's really very easy for him to tell her now.

"Well," John says and she looks up at him, her hand still stroking his dick. "Mmm, yeah, baby, like that, hard." He pets her head and says, "Do me a favor," and she smiles and purrs, "anything," and he says, "I want your finger, stick your finger in me," and her eyes widen and she sits back, her hand not on his dick anymore and he knows that he ain't getting anything else the rest of the night.

"What?" she asks.

"Come on, Adrienne, it feels good," John tells her.

"How the fuck would you know?" she asks him. "We never did that, how would you know how it feels?"

John panics slightly, because she does have a point. He snorts, "It's common knowledge," he tells her. "Guys have a prostate, it's amazing when it's stimulated."

She wrinkles her nose and her forehead and looks at his naked body with distaste. John feels like he should cover up or something. Adrienne says, "did you shower?" and he wants to slap her.

"What? The fuck, Adrienne!" He shakes his head, "of course I fucking showered, I'm not a Neanderthal!"

"You shit out of your asshole, Johnny, I ain't sticking my finger up there!"

John wants to laugh. In fact, he does. He starts laughing in disbelief that this fucking girl would think of something like that, when in fact, really, she _should_ think of something like that, but come the fuck on, Lance had his tongue there and that's way worse than a finger. So John goes for broke - since he's not getting any anyway - and says, "So I guess you tonguing me is out of the question?" and Adrienne looks horrified and gets up, picking up her coat and purse and leaving, telling John to "not fucking call me anymore, you sick bastard."

John wants to care, but can't. He just waits until he hears the door slam behind her, reaches down and jerks himself off, thinking of Lance the whole time.

 


	2. Chapter 2

John picks up girls after Adrienne walks out on him. He really kind of loves the single life a lot. When he was married, he cheated on Laurie, not because he didn't love her, but because he was so fucking lonely doing the rock star thing and she refused to give up her career to follow him around when they had no idea what was going to become of this pipe dream. And then when he hit it big, he had women throwing themselves at him and he was really just a fucking kid in a fucking candy store, how could he not sleep with some of them?

But then he came home and Laurie screamed at him. She bitched at him, telling him she stood by him when times were their roughest and he couldn't do her the decency of not cheating on her, he could have at least broken up with her before he fucked around on her. And John really did love her, and he fucking hated to see that look on her face, and he vowed right then that he would never, ever put that look on another woman's face.

So he never cheated on Adrienne. Not technically. Sure, when they weren't serious and exclusive, he went out with other woman. And that thing with Lance wasn't cheating exactly. John's not sure what it was, but it wasn't cheating, hell he didn't even kiss Lance. But John was faithful to her while they were together and now that they're not, he's having the time of his life.

He picks up a different girl every night he goes out. And hey, it's not like he's being a complete whore here, he's only going out once a week or so, but it's nice to know that he can still get women, they still want him and they don't see him as an aging rock star.

Then one night they're playing in Salt Lake City and John's just having a shitty night. Rob fucked up his hand and he missed the concert and John just felt fucking off without Rob to his left and of course it was fucking snowing. And not that really great fluffy snow that seems to fall perfectly from the sky in those amazing snowflakes that land on things and don't melt until you can actually see the shape, but that shitty snow that's really mixed with rain and is just heavy and fucking wet and way colder than the awesome snow. John thinks that the snow and Rob's hand is just a sign that he should write off the night and go to bed.

Instead, he ends up in the hotel bar. He's drinking faster than he should, but the bartender is a fan and he gave John the bottle on the house and John's working steadily through it, his back to the room, not meeting anyone's eyes in the mirror, knowing he's projecting the image of "don't even fucking come ask me for anything," and that's just the way he likes it.

It's early when the bar starts to close up, at least by Buffalo time. John's thinking he's in a time warp when the bartender calls last call, because it can't be four o'clock already, so he looks up and sees it's only midnight and what the fuck is that shit? John waits until everyone leaves and asks the bartender if he can take the bottle to his room and the bartender smiles at him says, "want some company?" and John doesn't think anything of it when he says, "sure."

The bartender - who's name is Landon, which John finds extremely funny but refuses to explain why - takes the bottle from John's hand as soon as they enter the room and swigs right from the neck. He sighs and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, setting the bottle on the dresser and pressing John against the wall. John is drunk and he's slightly confused, but then Landon puts his hand down the front of John's pants, and this part John knows really well, so he says, "no fucking kissing and if you tell anyone about this, I'll kill you myself," and Landon says, "deal," and slides down John's body.

He's not as good as Lance, and John's beginning to wonder if anyone is. Since Lance sucked him off, he hasn't been able to find someone to measure up, not Adrienne, not the parade of women and not Landon on his knees in front of John now. Landon's not bad, he's a bit too eager and John thinks that Landon is a bit more star struck than he let on, but his mouth feels good and when John looks down, the top of Landon's head kind of resembles Lance's, so he threads his fingers through Landon's hair and lets him suck his dick.

John comes with Lance's face in his head and when Landon stands up and smiles at John, John says, "thanks, that was great," and Landon ducks his head and smiles in return, his hand moving to his own dick and John groans, because Lance understood that it wasn't going both ways without John having to actually say it, but Landon doesn't seem to be getting the point, so now John has to be an asshole and that ups the chances of Landon telling everyone that John Rzeznik likes to get his dick sucked by guys.

"So, uh…" Landon starts and John leans back against the wall, stumbling slightly. Landon reaches out, "Woah, hey, are you okay?" and John almost smiles because the kid took the bait, hook, line and sinker and all John has to do is pretend he can't hold a half a bottle of Jack in his system.

John slumps against the wall, his eyes half shut and he sort of slides down it and Landon's there, picking him off the floor and helping him to the bed. John falls onto the bed and Landon stands there awkwardly. John reaches for him - at least pretend he had planned on doing this, right? - but Landon shakes his head and smiles faintly, "no, man, you need to sleep."

"Mm, sorry," John mumbles and Landon shrugs, "no big deal. See ya around," he says and lets himself out.

John waits five minutes before getting up and turning on his shower. He takes a hot shower then turns the water cold at the end, drying off and grabbing the bottle of whiskey Landon left behind before falling back into bed, naked. His phone is on the nightstand next to the bed and he picks it up and dials it, holding it to his ear.

It rings four times and John hangs up. He redials and waits. It rings another four times and he repeats the process. This time, it only rings twice.

"What?" Lance's voice is tired, laced with sleep, heavy with a southern accent and John looks at the clock.

"Sorry, did I wake you?" John asks.

"Fuck," Lance says and John smiles, "who is this?"

"It's John."

"John who? And why are you calling me at one in the fucking morning?"

"John Rzeznik, you dick," John says to him. "Didn't you look at your display?"

"No, I didn't look at the fucking display," Lance tells him and his voice isn't as sleepy as before. Although, his accent is still pronounced, which John is finding to be really fucking hot. "I was asleep until you called me and woke me up!"

"It's early," John informs him. "Why aren't you out partying? You're young, I know you like to party."

"Because it's a fucking Monday night!" Lance practically yells at him. "Some of us have to work in the morning, John. And why the fuck are you calling me? You haven't called me in… ever!"

"Some guy just sucked my dick," he tells Lance. Lance is very oddly quiet. John thinks that maybe he shouldn't have told Lance this, but he did and now it's out there and now John has to fix it, so he says, "He wasn't as good as you, though," and Lance laughs, and it sounds really fucking bitter, then he says, "Goodbye, John," and hangs up the phone.

*****

John tours for what seems like the rest of his life, but is really only a few months. He sleeps with a few more women, but no one holds his interest, and by the end of the tour, he's happy just going back to his room, smoking some cigarettes, maybe doing a line of coke and going to sleep. He picked up one more guy somewhere in the middle of the country, and pulled the same stunt he did with Landon, except this time, he didn't call Lance when he was alone.

John thinks about calling Lance, then wonders what he would even say if he did. John can't figure out what's going on in his head half the time, and he can't figure it out any of the time when it comes to Lance. He likes the kid, he knows that, the kid has a good fucking mouth, but it's not like he wants to date him. Hell, John doesn't even want to kiss him.

But he kind of wants to jerk him off. He wants to see what Lance looks like naked, and he wants to see how those eyes get when he's turned on. John wants Lance to look at him through half-lidded eyes, wants to see Lance smile at him when John makes him come. He wants to know if Lance's voice gets even lower when he's turned on, what kind of sounds this kid with the incredible mouth makes. He even kind of wants to suck Lance's dick. He's curious now, he wants to know what it tastes like, why Lance likes doing it so much.

So it's a challenge, John thinks to himself. It's a challenge, not to conquer Lance, not to make Lance want him, but it's a challenge to himself. To prove that he can do anything, he can be good at sex with women, and you know what, he can be good at sex with men. It's about proving something to himself, his manhood is at stake. Or something like that, John really has no fucking idea what's going on in his head.

*****

John's in LA for a while before he has to head to Vegas for New Years Eve. He's bored one night, tired of wrapping presents and putting them in boxes to mail to people, so he decides to call Lance.

"So is this going to be a once every six months thing?" Lance says in lieu of hello.

"Why don't you come over?" John asks him.

"What?"

"Come over. I'm bored."

"So you want me to suck your dick?" Lance says. "Also, I don't know where you live, and another thing, you don't even know if I'm in LA."

"No," John tells him, "I don't want you to suck my dick."

"You don't," Lance says flatly.

"No. I mean, if you wanted to, you are more than welcome to, but that's not why I was calling. Like I said, I was bored." He looks at the pile of presents he just wrapped. "Do you know how to wrap presents?"

"Um, yeah," Lance says, and he kind of sounds like this conversation is going in too many random directions for him.

"Then come over and help me," John says, tells Lance his address and doesn't wait for a goodbye before hanging up the phone.

The thing about what John just did, though, is that he didn't wait to see if Lance was going to come over. For all John knows, Lance is at home, back with his family to celebrate the holidays. It's a week before Christmas, it's not outside the realm of possibility that Lance would be in Mississippi. So now John has to wait. It's only three in the afternoon, John has all fucking day to wait and see if Lance is going to show up. He has way too much time to think about what it means if he does, what John wants it to mean.

John doesn't want it to mean anything. He likes Lance, he really does. Beyond the whole being amazing at getting John off part, John thinks the kid is smart. He thinks he's funny, and he loves arguing with him, he misses the verbal spatting. Funny how that annoyed him with Adrienne, but with Lance, John likes it. Lance keeps John on his toes, he never knows what Lance is going to say or do, and John likes that. So he doesn't want this to mean anything beyond them hanging out. And Lance possibly wrapping his Christmas presents for him.

John paces a lot. He remembers he didn't get anything out for dinner, so he goes into the kitchen and makes sure he has stuff for pasta. He drinks a beer. Then has another. And he looks at the clock so often, he's afraid it's broken when it doesn't move at all, then he realizes he just looked at it a minute ago.

At a little after six, the doorbell rings and John trips over himself to go answer it. He's embarrassed to feel a fluttering in his stomach, the same thing that used to happen to him when it was new and fun and exciting with Adrienne.

Lance is standing on his porch with his hands in his pockets and John opens the door and grins and Lance smiles at him, says, "I didn't bring wine, was I supposed to bring wine?" and John laughs, shaking his head and stepping back to allow Lance to enter the house.

Lance looks around, not obviously, but not subtly, either and John leads him through the house, gives him the two minute tour and they end up in the kitchen, where the water for the pasta has started to boil. John attends to the food and Lance doesn't even offer to help, which would normally piss John off, but then he remembers the contents of Lance's fridge and is glad Lance didn't offer. Lance leans against the edge of the countertop and watches John, his arms loosely crossed over his chest.

They don't really talk about anything important, mostly mindless talk about the food and what kind of wine they should have with dinner, "beer," says Lance, and okay, if John was gay, he might have fallen a bit in love with Lance for that, and then they transition to tour and Lance being on a break and John remembers something he saw on the news.

"Hey, you were going to space," he says.

Lance shrugs, and says, "yeah, but the funding fell through," and John can tell he doesn't really want to talk about it, so he nods, says something generic about it and changes the subject. He sees Lance's shoulders slump in relief and John smiles, because for once he wasn't an asshole when it came to Lance. Maybe he can read Lance better than he thought.

John sets the pasta on the table, gets them a couple beers and Lance sits across from him. John twirls his pasta against a spoon and is pleased to see Lance doesn't cut his pasta. There's a long silence as they start eating and when John feels like it's turning uncomfortable, he says, "So, hey, I rented _Pretty Woman_."

Lance looks up in surprise. "You did? Why?"

John grins, "If I was going to be insulted, I wanted to know the meaning behind it."

Lance turns a nice shade of red and mumbles, "It wasn't an insult, it's just… weird." He looks back down at his plate, "So is that why?"

John knows what Lance is talking about, but he doesn't want to answer, he doesn't want to have to lie to Lance, when Lance has done nothing to deserve it. Maybe he is an asshole after all. Big fucking deal, he didn't make Lance talk about space, he's going to sit here and he's going to lie to his face, and that's a lot worse.

But he can't tell Lance the reasons. He can't tell Lance that he doesn't want to be gay and kissing Lance would mean he's gay. That sounds stupid even in John's head, he knows how it'll sound if he says it out loud. And he'd be insulting Lance. Lance, who is clearly okay with being gay. Of course he would be insulted if John basically told him that he doesn't want to be gay. Lance would think John meant there's something wrong with it, which isn't what John means at all. It's just… not for him.

"Yeah," John finally says. "Sort of."

Lance tilts his head, "Sort of?"

John nods, not looking at Lance. "Kissing is intimate. I mean, I guess that sounds fucking stupid, since I'm not a hooker, it's not different for me like it was for her, but yeah, it's intimate."

"So me sucking your dick, that's not intimate?"

John looks up and sees the smile on Lance's face and says, "Yeah, for you. Not for me. I mean, if I sucked your dick," Lance turns a nice shade of red at that comment and John files that in his mind for later, "that would be intimate, too, but kissing is different. It's sharing breath, it's…" John trails off, trying to find words, he needs the perfect words to make this lie believable. "I only kiss if I'm in love." Woah. What? Where did that come from? Jesus.

Lance raises his eyebrows, "What?"

"I mean," John says, pushing back his plate, "I obviously have kissed women I haven't been in love with, but… and come on, you know how it is… being on the road, I've been with a lot of women, and I don't kiss them all. Kissing is special to me now. I don't kiss anyone anymore unless I'm in love."

"Oh," Lance says, sitting back in his chair. John watches him, tries to read the look on Lance's face, but can't. He has no idea what Lance is thinking. Lance looks at him, "But you do other things? Besides kissing?"

John laughs, "Of course. Hey, I need to get laid sometime!"

Lance grins and picks up his beer, finishing it. "Yeah, I guess you do." He stand up, "Come on, I saw a pile of presents in your living room that were horribly wrapped."

John leaves the dishes on the table and follows Lance into his living room. Lance tells him to grab a few more beers, so he does, setting them on the coffee table that he was using as his workspace. Lance raises his eyebrows at the presents, says, "Wow, how about we just open them all and start again?" and rips the paper off one present, which now John sees didn't even cover the whole box.

John sits back and drinks his beer, and let's Lance do his work.

*****

That's the first time John hangs out with Lance and nothing happens between them. It's weird for John, he spends the whole night trying to read Lance, trying to figure out if Lance is throwing him subtle signals or not. In the end, John decides that if Lance wanted something, Lance would just take it.

Lance doesn't throw himself at John, but he does wrap all John's presents, so all John has to do the next day is put them in a few boxes and ship them East. He's not able to drive this year, he's flying so he can spend more time with his family before he has to head to Vegas for New Years Eve, so he can't take the gifts with him. He carefully labels all the boxes with Fran's address and runs to the post office before heading to Rob's house to pretend to do some work.

He leaves for Buffalo a couple days later and doesn't talk to Lance at all. He tries not to think of Lance, but he can't get him out of his head. He's a great guy, John realizes. And even though they only hung out once, Lance acts completely normal around him. John sometimes hates having famous friends because if they're not quite as famous as John, they tend to latch onto him and hope he'll get them somewhere, and if they're more famous than John, they tend to look down at him for not living the lifestyle they're used to.

But Lance isn't like that. Lance is about a billion times more famous than John will ever be - than John would ever want to be, even - but Lance doesn't talk to John like John's beneath him. When John says he hates eating out because he can make the same thing at home cheaper, Lance doesn't look at him like he has a third head for not wanting to spend his money, he just laughs and says, "I have no choice, since if I had to live on what I could make, I'd be eating burnt microwave popcorn every night." He likes that Lance liked his pasta, that Lance made fun of him for how he wrapped his presents, that Lance finished wrapping them and still hung around afterwards, drinking John's beer with his feet in John's lap.

Huh. Now that John thinks about it, that could have been a subtle signal.

He really, really likes Lance. He could end up being a good friend, John thinks. They come from two completely different worlds, and even though Lance respects that John doesn't want to spend his money on frivolous things, he can't fathom why John wouldn't spend it on things like tee shirts that aren't Hanes. John can't explain to Lance that it's how he was brought up, because Lance doesn't get it, the last part of his life, the most formative years, Lance has spent having lots and lots of money. But it's okay that they disagree on it. Because John doesn't hesitate to call Lance on his shit, and Lance has proven time and again that he won't hesitate to call John on his shit, and really, when everything boils down, that's what's important to John.

*****

John gets to Buffalo and after three days is cursing the fact that he didn't drive. He wishes he had an excuse to leave, to get away from these crazy bitches and get on the open road and drive away. He loves his sisters, but they drive him fucking insane, and the holidays are worse, because they're all talking over each other and they're all shouting and he want to just scream at them all to please, just shut the fuck up, so he heads outside of Gladys's house and lights a cigarette.

He can still hear them, even with the door shut behind him and he shakes his head a little, laughing. Crazy, every single one of them.

John takes a drag of his cigarette and pulls out his phone, dialing Lance's number. He realizes that he always calls Lance, Lance never has picked up the phone to call John, and that kind of pisses him off a little bit. Why the fuck is he making all the effort here?

When Lance answers his phone, his accent more pronounced after being home for a few days, John doesn't even say hello, he says, "Why the fuck don't you ever call me?"

Lance pauses, then laughs softly, then says, "Merry Christmas to you, too, John."

"Yeah, yeah, merry Christmas," John says and inhales again. "So? Why don't you call me?"

"I just don't," Lance tells him. "You don't want me calling, it's better this way."

John wrinkles his forehead and exhales the smoke from his lungs. "Why? What the fuck does that mean?"

Lance sighs and says, "Forget it, John. Hey, how's the family? Did they ask you if you took gift wrapping classes this year?"

John laughs and leans against the porch railing. "Hey, fuck off." He smiles when Lance laughs again and he kicks at some snow on the porch. "Actually, they're convinced I got it done at the mall."

"Good," Lance says. "You shouldn't take any credit for it." John's about to reply when Lance keeps talking, so John shuts his mouth, because he's really enjoying Lance's accent, and how his speech has gotten just a little bit slower, the drawl a little bit longer. "So hey, is there snow there?"

"Yep," John says, his eyes on the backyard. "We got dumped on last night and it's actually starting to snow now."

"Oh man," Lance says, his voice wistful. "I wish I were there."

John nods, "Yeah, I wish you were, too," and Lance says, "what?" very, very softly and John winces and closes his eyes, because that did not need to come out of his mouth. "I mean…" John hedges, "because it's nice and really fucking cold and it's not Christmas when there's not even a chance that you'd get snow."

"Right," Lance says softly, "of course." He tells John to hang on, and John can hear someone yelling to Lance, and then Lance's voice is curling around his ears again, "hey, I gotta go."

"Oh, yeah, of course," John says. "I just wanted to say hey and merry Christmas." He hesitates and he can hear Lance's breathing, and he says, "You want to come to Vegas on New Years? I'm doing a show."

"Yeah?" Lance asks and his voice is slightly hopeful. "You sure?"

John nods, "Yeah, I'm sure. I'll be getting in that morning, and I have a ton of stuff to do, but I'll put your name on the list and we'll hang out after the show."

"That be great," Lance says, and if John closes his eyes, he can see Lance's smile. John is sure to keep his eyes open.

"Okay, well, I'll see you then."

"Yeah, totally," Lance says. "Thanks. Bye, baby."

Lance hangs up the phone before John can reply, and John's left standing in the cold, Lance's endearment ringing in his ears. Slowly, he smiles.

*****

New Years comes and John's drunk. He wasn't planning on getting drunk since he's probably going to see Lance later, and from past experience, he knows he shouldn't be too drunk around Lance, since things tend to happen, but whatever, it's New Years. If he can't get drunk on New Years Eve, when can he?

So John is drunk and he has to a do a show, but he's pretty good at doing shows while not totally sober, so he goes out there and gives it his all, and the crowd fucking loves him. He kicks ass on that stage and the crowd is totally into it and he thinks that maybe they're all drunk, too, which is fucking excellent, because everyone should be drunk. He counts down to midnight and since he's blissfully single, he has to kiss Rob at midnight, which wouldn't be the first time he had to kiss Rob at midnight, and it probably won't be the last, although, John does wish his first kiss of the new year wasn't Rob. Although, at least it wasn't on the lips and with tongue, so John figures that his first real kiss can come later.

But not later that night, nope, not at all. Because he's not kissing Lance, no way, no how. He's thinking of touching Lance, he thinks that maybe he's drunk enough to give Lance a hand job, that he can do. But he's not going to kiss Lance, because he's totally not gay.

He doesn't have to think about any of that now, though. He can wonder what Lance's dick looks like later, he can wonder what it'll feel like, maybe what it'll taste like after the show. He can wonder if Lance will maybe call him baby again when he comes, because that might be fucking hot, but he can wonder all that shit later, right now he has to finish this fucking show.

They finish the show and it's so kickass, even John's happy with the performance. Rob already has an open bottle of whiskey in his hand and he gives it to John as John passes him. John takes a long swallow and hands it back to Rob. He has places to be, he can't be worried about drinking more. John grabs a towel and wipes off his face, wishing he could shower at the venue before heading back to his room, but that's not possible, so he wipes his face and arms and under his arms and hopes he doesn't stink too much because he'll be seeing Lance, and now John's kind of horny and he definitely wants Lance touching him.

The rep from the venue sticks her head in the dressing room, tells them that there are people waiting to see them, all of them were on the list, is it okay if they come in? John tosses the towel to the side and runs his fingers through his hair as Rob tells her to let them in. He picks up a bottle of water and takes a long drink, watching the people come into the room, waiting to see if Lance is one of them.

Of fucking course, Lance is the last one in and John practically has an anxiety attack wondering where the fuck he is. But then he's coming into the room and grinning at John and John can't help but grin back at this fucking kid who is slowly turning him into someone else.

Lance smiles at Rob and Mike, says hi to them as he heads to where John's standing and John feels Rob's eyes on him, so he makes a point of not looking at Rob or watching Lance as he crosses the room. He takes another drink of his water and lowers it just as Lance is standing in front of him.

"Hey," Lance says. "Great show." He tilts his head. "Just how drunk are you?"

John scowls at him and Lance laughs. "Drunk enough," John tells him. "You should be drunk."

Lance shrugs, "I got in late, I didn't want to drink and miss the show."

John nods towards the door. "I'm done here, you wanna get out of here?"

Lance slowly smiles, "Yeah, I'd like that." He waits for John to get his shit together and follows John out of the room.

John leads him outside where there's a car waiting for him. The driver opens the door and Lance smoothly gets in, sliding against the far door, and John follows. John's backpack and the bag Lance was carrying are between them, but John's acutely aware of Lance next to him. Lance smells really good.

They don't talk much on the way to the hotel, John asks about Lance's flight, Lance says it was good, mentions the hotel he's staying at, John says, "You can stay with me tonight," and both he and Lance are surprised that he mentioned that, but Lance recovers first and instead of making a big deal out of what John just said, he says, "We'll see, thanks," and John's amazed again at what a nice guy Lance is.

John's room is nothing special, it's just a room, but at least this time it's not a suite that he has to share with Rob and Mike. It has everything John needs, a bed, a bathroom, a TV and a mini-bar, so John doesn't complain that it's not a huge suite. John tosses his backpack on the floor and tells Lance to sit down, he's just going to shower, and Lance looks up at him, says, "Can I come, too?" and John is drunker than he thought, because he says, "Yeah, sure."

Lance follows him to the bathroom and John leans over to turn on the water, and when he turns back around, Lance is watching him. "What?" John asks.

"You sure about this?" Lance asks him. "I was… I was mostly just kidding."

John shrugs, reaches for the hem of his shirt, "No, it's cool. Could be fun. Just no-"

"Kissing," Lance interrupts. He sighs, "yeah, I know."

"Okay," John says and starts to pull his shirt over his head. He gets it tangled in his arms above his head when he feels Lance's lips on his torso. He stills for a second, arms over his head, breath held as Lance's tongue slides along his lowest rib. John snaps out of it long enough to throw his shirt on the floor and his hands come down, one in Lance's hair, the other resting on Lance's shoulder.

Lance's hands are gripping John's hips, holding him in place, and his mouth slides along John's side and up to his nipple, his tongue coming out and swirling around the bud before his teeth capture it and tug gently. John moans softy, his eyes falling shut. Lance's teeth let go and his mouth covers John's nipple and he sucks gently. John's fingers tighten in Lance's hair and he gasps as Lance's hand skates along his stomach and just below the waistband of his jeans.

Lance is a fucking master, John's decided. John doesn't even feel Lance opening his jeans, he just feels Lance sliding them down his hips and over his legs. Lance's mouth doesn't move from John's skin, his tongue is licking and tasting every inch of exposed skin, and all John can do is stand there and take it.

The steam from the shower is filling the room when Lance stands up, sliding his hands along John's naked thighs, cupping his dick briefly, tugging it slightly, before moving up his body to cup John's face. John looks down at Lance, sees Lance's eyes are dark, his lips are parted, his breath shallow. John licks his lips, groans softly, because he really doesn't want to kiss this fucking kid, but yeah, when Lance is looking at him like that, when he can see in Lance's eyes that the kid really does care about him, he almost wants to move his head forward and press his lips to Lance's. Lance smiles faintly, as if he can read John's mind and leans forward, his hands tilting John's face up, his tongue coming out to lick the underside of John's jaw, back to his ear, tugging the lobe between his teeth.

"Get in the shower, baby," Lance says and John moans.

"You're not undressed," John tells him and Lance pulls back to look at him.

"You really want me to be?" Lance asks him seriously.

John hesitates only briefly before reaching out and touching Lance's jaw. His hand slides down Lance's neck and over his shoulder, trailing down Lance's arm and hand, landing on his waist. John nods, tugging on the hem of Lance's shirt and pulling it up and over Lance's head.

John is pretty sure that Lance knows he's never done anything like this before, but John feels the need to tell Lance anyway, like he wants to disclaim that if he sucks, it's because its his first time.

Lance puts his hand over John's lips, "I know," he says, smiling crookedly. "It's okay, just… do whatever you want."

John purses his lips and kisses Lance's fingertips. He nods and leans forward, pressing his mouth against Lance's shoulder, right at the point where his shoulder meets his neck. Lance sighs softly and tilts his head to the side. John takes his cue and runs his mouth up the side of Lance's neck, his tongue coming out briefly behind Lance's ear.

Lance moans softly and John moves his hands from Lance's hips up his sides. He doesn't really know what he's doing, but he knows what he likes, and he figures that except for the parts, it can't be so different than being with a girl. He knows that he can be rougher, but he knows that his nipples are sensitive, too, so he brushes his thumbs over Lance's nipples as he bites down on the lobe of Lance's ear.

"John," Lance breathes so softly, John doesn't know if he actually said it or if John was just hearing things. Lance's hands are on John's back, his fingertips trailing over skin. John kisses over to Lance's other nipple, copying Lance's motions, taking Lance's nipple between his teeth and tugging on it.

Lance tastes salty, John thinks. His skin has a sheen of sweat on it, and John thinks that it should be sort of gross, but it's not, it's sexy. It's sexy the way Lance catches his breath when John does something he likes. He likes how responsive Lance is to his touches, Lance is moaning or sighing, or his hands are tightening on John's skin every time John does something new.

John stands up and smiles at Lance, who's now looking at him through heavy lidded eyes. "Please, John," Lance whispers. "I want you to touch me."

John's heart skips a beat and he feels like there's something right under the surface of what Lance is saying, he feels like there's something he's missing, but this isn't the time to be thinking of that, John decides. Right now is the time to open Lance's pants and take him in his hand.

John's nervous. He wishes he drank more earlier, because this is all unchartered territory for him and so many things could go wrong right now. He knows that much, anyway. He knows that Lance is looking at him with something in his eyes that John can't read, and he knows that he can walk away now, but if he does, he'll never see Lance again, not even just to talk to him, and he can't let that happen. He knows that this is crossing a line, it's not kissing, but dammit, it's close and John thought he was trying to prove something to himself, but now that it's actually happening, this is going way beyond proving something to himself.

Lance sees his hesitation and he nods slightly, forces a smile and takes a step back from John. "It's cool. You shower, I'll wait in the other room."

"No," John says, pulling Lance back to him by the waist of his pants. "No, I don't want you to." He presses his lips to the hollow of Lance's throat, he can feel Lance's heartbeat under his lips. "I just have to go slow," John says.

Lance sighs, "Okay. Just not too slow, okay? You're killing me here."

John laughs softly against Lance's throat and steps back, dropping his eyes to Lance's waist and opening his jeans. He takes a deep breath, pushes away his thoughts and then slides Lance's pants over his hips.

Lance is hard. God, Lance is hard and his dick pops out of his pants as John pushes them to the floor, and John can't help but stare at it. He would never call it beautiful, because let's face it, he thinks, cocks are just not beautiful, there's nothing beautiful about it. But it is impressive, John thinks. Lance is big. John almost wants to touch it because he doesn't believe that Lance could have hidden this in a pair of jeans. And John knows that he's exaggerating all this in his head, he's sure Lance isn't that big, but damn, he's bigger than John, and John never felt that he was inadequate.

John reaches down, slowly touching Lance, dragging his fingers slowly along Lance's length. Lance hisses and John looks up at his face to see Lance watching him, his bottom lip caught between his teeth. John looks back down and wraps his fingers around Lance, feels him in his hand, feels his heat for a minute before starting to move his wrist.

Lance groans, says something that almost sounds like, "finally," and leans against the sink. John still can't look away from Lance's dick. He's fascinated by it, the way it twitches when he moves his thumb over the head, the way it almost feels like it's getting harder with every stroke.

John suddenly has the urge to taste it. He wants Lance's dick in his mouth, he wants to run his tongue down Lance's cock and under his balls, he wants to give Lance what Lance gave him. He wants to show Lance that he can do this, that Lance can count on him to not just want Lance for a blow job, that he can give it to Lance, too, he's not a selfish asshole like Lance thinks he is.

"Come on," John says, "let's get in the shower."

Lance blinks slowly and looks at John with wide eyes. He nods, standing up and following John to the shower. The water is hot, steam is still rising from it, and John adjusts the water as he stands under it. He can feel Lance behind him and he closes his eyes when Lance's arms wrap around his waist and he presses a kiss to the center of John's back. John can feel his lips moving against his skin, he says, "What did you say?" and he can feel Lance shake his head and say, "nothing."

Lance picks up the soap and washes John. John stands there under the spray and lets Lance do whatever he wants. Lance runs his soapy hands over John's skin, rubbing tired muscles, relaxing him at the same time he cleans him. He saves John's dick for last and John leans against the wall of the tub and reaches for the showerhead to hang onto while Lance jerks him off. The soap makes Lance's hand slick and John's close to coming after two minutes, and he knows that he won't last that long. He moans Lance's name and Lance is suddenly pressed against him, his thighs nudging John's legs apart, and John opens them, yes, Lance can have anything he wants right now, as long as he keeps doing that corkscrew thing with his hand. Lance's slick fingers are moving under him and John moans, knowing what Lance is going to do, actually wanting it, and when Lance slips his finger inside John, John presses down against it involuntarily.

Lance is still jerking him off, his arm moving faster, his wrist twisting with every thrust and John vaguely wonders how Lance's arm isn't tired and ready to fall off, but then Lance adds a second finger and John's not thinking anymore. He's boneless, focused on standing and not falling and Lance scissors his fingers, slides his thumb across the head of John's dick, then squeezes his fingers tighter as he moves his hand down John's dick and John cries out, coming suddenly. Lance doesn't stop moving his hand as he drops to his knees and fits his mouth over the top of John's dick, sucking on it gently. John's hips are jerking, he's way too sensitive for this right now, but he can't seem to find the words for Lance to stop, he's not sure he wants him to stop.

Finally, Lance pulls back, slips his fingers out of John's ass and pushes his hips against the wall. Lance sucks on the bone of John's hip and John whimpers. His fingers slide into Lance's hair, holding his head as Lance laps at John's stomach, cleaning him up, even though they're in the shower and that's what the water is for.

John looks down at Lance, says, "Jesus Christ, you're good at that," and Lance grins. He stands up, giving John a moment to relax, and tilts his face to the water. He opens his mouth, letting water run into it and he runs his hands over his face. John watches him openly. He wonders what this kid sees in him. But then Lance turns his head to him and grins again, and John figures it's best not to question it.

John reaches out and trails one finger down the center of Lance's chest and down his dick. Lance closes his eyes and shudders and John says, "I don't know what to do."

Lance opens his eyes and smiles faintly. "Just do what you like. It's not like anything could be bad, you know?" John laughs, cause yeah, he does know. Sometimes it's better than others, but it's never really bad.

John nods and pushes Lance against the wall. "If I suck, I'm sorry." He kisses Lance's chest and slides his mouth lower, dipping his tongue into Lance's bellybutton.

Lance's breath hitches, "I'm sure you'll be fine. Just. No teeth," he tells him and John nods, because even he knew that much.

John takes Lance in his hand again and since his palm is on Lance's stomach, he can feel Lance's muscles contract in anticipation. Lance drops his hand onto John's head and John feels Lance's fingers tangle in his hair. John hopes Lance doesn't push him or make him go too fast, John's a rookie here, he hopes Lance remembers that.

John takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, moving his mouth towards Lance's dick. He tentatively sticks out his tongue, lapping at the tip of Lance's cock. Lance whimpers softly, so John thinks that he's doing something good, so he does it again, his tongue tasting the head of Lance's dick like it's an ice cream cone. John likes the sounds Lance is making, and he does it again, hoping to get those same sounds from Lance again. But he doesn't. The sounds he gets the third time is a low moan, almost a growl, and that's even better than before, John thinks, he likes the desperate sounds.

Lance tugs gently on his hair, says, "Jesus fucking Christ, you're such a tease," and John realizes that wow, he's been doing this for a couple minutes, and if he were Lance, he'd be ready to kill the person teasing him like this, so he opens his mouth and let's Lance's dick slide between his lips.

John's not sure how he feels about this. He knows that he likes the sounds Lance is making, and he knows he likes the way Lance's fingers tightened in his hair, and he knows he likes how Lance is saying his name, but he's not sure he's sold on the feeling of a dick in his mouth. It's not something that he'd ever thought he'd do, and he doesn't know if it's just his mind resisting it or if he just doesn't like it. But he closes his mouth and sucks gently as he slides his head back, and he experimentally runs his tongue along the underside of Lance's dick, and is pleased when Lance's knees give out slightly and he has to grip John's shoulder for support and stability.

John closes his eyes and doesn't think about what he's doing. It's almost like instinct now, he thinks. He knows what he likes in a blowjob, so he just does those things to Lance. He uses his tongue, he uses his hand, he makes sure his fingers are tight around Lance's dick. His mouth moves up as his hand moves down, two different directions in a move that he knows always fucks with his mind in the best way possible.

Lance is keening above him. John's surprised to hear the sounds Lance is making, for some reason, he pictured this kid to be quiet, but Lance isn't like that at all. He's vocal, he lets John know exactly what he likes and when John hears Lance gasp and feels Lance's fingers tighten in his hair, he knows that he's doing something right and that Lance isn't far from coming. That makes John panic slightly, because what is he supposed to do then? Everyone he's ever been with has swallowed, but John doesn't know if he can do that, hell, he has no idea what that shit'll taste like and it would be really rude to swallow and then to gag or something.

But Lance makes the decision for him. He tugs on his hair, says, "up, move, get up," and John does, but keeps his hand on Lance. Not five seconds after John moved his mouth from Lance's dick, Lance's hips jerk and he's coming, and John's once again fascinated by it. He strokes Lance, jerks him off and watches the come shoot from Lance's cock and hit his stomach, the floor of the tub and John's hand. He looks up at Lance, who has his head tilted back against the wall of the tub. His chest is heaving and he seems to be having trouble catching his breath, and John knows exactly how that feels. He looks down at his hand and takes it from Lance's dick, slowly bringing his fingers to his lips. His tongue snakes out and tastes Lance's come and John can't say that he loves it, but it's not bad at all, and maybe next time - if there is a next time - John can attempt to swallow.

Lance sighs and John looks back up at him and Lance smiles. "You sure that was your first time?" he asks, his voice still somewhat shaky.

John nods and stands up, "yeah. Positive."

Lance laughs softly, "Jesus, John, you're a natural."

John blushes faintly and smiles. He lifts a shoulder and lets it drop. "I guess."

Lance smiles in return and pushes himself off the wall. He presses his lips to John's cheek, says, "God, I want to kiss you so fucking bad," and doesn't wait for a reply as he steps around John and out of the tub.

John hears Lance moving around the bathroom and he quickly finishes his shower, washing his hair and turning off the water before pushing back the curtain. Lance is sitting on the sink, a towel wrapped around his waist and he tosses another towel to John. John catches it, says, "thanks," and dries himself off before stepping out of the tub.

Lance jumps off the sink and goes into the other room. "Hey, you have something I could put on?" he calls to John, and John goes into the bedroom and motions to his suitcase.

"Help yourself," John tells him.

Lance holds up a package of unopened underwear and grins. "Can't just do laundry?"

John rolls his eyes, "Christmas present."

Lance nods, "uh huh, sure," and opens the package, taking out a pair of boxers and slipping them on. John takes out a pair and watches Lance root through his clothes.

"Um, it's all tee shirts," he says, "I mean, if you're looking for something preppy you're not going to find it."

Lance looks up at him, "You calling me preppy?"

John grins, "Well, if the button down shirt fits…"

Lance laughs and shakes his head. He picks out John's favorite blue tee shirt and slips it over his head. John really hopes Lance gives it back before he leaves. Lance lies back on the bed and puts his hands behind his head. "Hey, I got you something."

"Yeah?" John says, towel drying his hair. "For what?"

"Christmas," Lance tells him. "Duh."

"What is it?" John asks.

Lance sits up, "get me that bag," he tells John, and John picks up the bag that Lance was carrying and tosses it on the bed. Lance opens it and pulls out a box.

He hands it to John and John grins as he takes it. "Look how nice you wrapped it."

"Yeah, yeah," Lance says. "Fuck you," he says, but he's grinning, so John sits down on the bed.

"You didn't have to do this," John tells him, "I didn't get you anything."

"I didn't think you would," Lance says, and the way he says it is just matter of fact, and somehow he doesn't make John feel like an asshole for not thinking of him.

John looks down at the box and wonders what the hell Lance could have gotten him. It's not like they know each other that well, if John had to buy something for Lance, he wouldn't even know where to start.

He opens the paper and throws it on the floor. He glances up at Lance, who's smiling slightly and watching him. He takes the top off the box and looks inside. He reaches in and pulls out a few things wrapped in tissue paper.

"Making me work here?" John asks him, and Lance blushes slightly. John unwraps the first item and he raises his eyebrows in surprise. "Wow. Lance, this is… where did you get this?" John's holding a post card that is clearly old, the edges are slightly worn and there's a faint yellow tint to them. On the front of the card is one of the streets in Buffalo, John recognizes it even without the caption underneath it. But it's not modern, it's a photo of when there were still cable cars running in the city.

"I was out with my mom, and I found this stuff," Lance says, and John picks up the next thing. Lance says, "It just make me think of you."

John opens the next present and unfolds a map of the city that's probably as old as the postcard. He carefully spreads it on the bed and glances at it. "This is my street," he says to Lance, "where I grew up." He looks up at Lance, and he's genuinely touched. "This is really great, Lance," he looks back down at the map, his eyes searching for familiar streets. "Really great," he says again.

"Well, like I said," Lance says, "they just made me think of you."

John's eyes are on the map, but he's not really looking at it. His mind is reeling. No one had ever gotten him something like this before. Usually when people buy him presents, they get him shit for his guitar or songwriting stuff, or clothes, they never seem to get him something that takes any bit of effort. Lance managed to do just that and he barely knows John at all.

John looks up at him, catches Lance staring. Lance holds his gaze, though, he doesn't look away. John reaches out and touches Lance's knee. "This is just. Lance, I don't know what to say."

"You like it?" Lance asks. "I mean, I know it's not something you can use, but I know that when I was on the road, I'd sometimes miss home, and I used to hang a picture of home on my bunk ceiling. It's not the same thing, but…" Lance's voice trails off and John can't even find words for what he's feeling.

"No, it's great," John says again. "No one's ever gotten me anything like this before. It's always frivolous shit."

"Yeah, well, maybe no one loves you like I do," Lance says and his eyes immediately get wide and his face gets red and John's so fucking grateful for those reactions, because he's not really sure he heard Lance right, but after that, he kind of is, and now that's just great, what's he supposed to say to that?

"Lance," John starts, but Lance waves his hand and gets off the bed.

"No, John, forget it," Lance says, going into the bathroom. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have…" He pulls on his jeans and curses when he drops a sock. John watches him, and for the first time since he's met Lance, Lance seems flustered and John's not really sure what he should do right now, if Lance wants him to say something - but what would he even say? - or if Lance wants him to just let it go, so John thinks that he should just let it go, because Lance is putting on his shoes, and that means Lance is leaving, so there's not much that he can say.

"Where are you going?" John asks him.

Lance stops and looks at him, then laughs somewhat bitterly. "I'm going. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have…" he takes a deep breath and puts on his shoes. He runs his hands through his hair, putting his tee shirt and dirty boxers in the bag that had contained John's present. He looks at John, almost helplessly, says, "I'm sorry. Call me, if you want," then leans down, brushes his lips over John's so briefly John doesn't have time to react, and then Lance is gone.


	3. Chapter 3

John wants to call Lance after New Years, but he doesn't. He thinks about it a lot. More than he should probably, and he tries to figure out what to say to Lance, but he can't. Because he's pretty sure with how his mouth doesn't listen to his brain sometimes, Lance would pick up the phone and John would say, "hey, what's, up? No, I'm fine, so are you still in love with me?" And John doesn't think that's a great idea.

So he doesn't call. But he really wants to. Because if there is any time John should call Lance, this is it. He doesn't know what Lance is thinking, Lance didn't say much before running out of the hotel room, and John feels like he should do something. Like maybe he should call Lance just to say hi, just so Lance doesn't think John's an asshole.

Tomorrow, he thinks. He wakes up, thinks about calling Lance, thinks _tomorrow_ , then goes about his day. And tomorrow turns into another tomorrow, then another and another and suddenly a whole month of tomorrows have passed and John still hasn't called. So now it's February and John hasn't called Lance, and that opens up a whole new issue: will Lance think he's an asshole for waiting a month to call or will Lance be happy that he did?

John's standing in his kitchen making dinner, and he realizes it's the same pasta he made when Lance came over around Christmas. He sighs and puts down the spoon and picks up his phone. He doesn't care if Lance thinks he's an asshole, he's going to call. It's been a month and okay, he should have called earlier, he can admit that, but at least he's calling now, right? At least he's still thinking about Lance and he's not hoping Lance fell off the face of the earth. So if Lance wants to get mad, let him get mad, because John is trying here, it's the best he can do, he doesn't know how he's supposed to react in situations like this, how the fuck is he supposed to react when a guy tells him that he loves him?

John sighs and holds the phone at his ear, looking at the postcard Lance got him. On the bus ride back to LA, John had lay down in his bunk, one arm behind his head and stared at that postcard. Every time he looked at it he noticed something different. The number on the cable car, or the store in the background, or the thin layer of snow on the ground. He recognized the street, closed his eyes and remembered running from the cops on that street, he wondered if one of the alleys on the postcard was one he ducked into to get away. He was amazed every time he looked at it or the map that Lance got them for him. It was like Lance knew him, and that amazed him.

When he got back to LA, he got the map framed. He took it to a shop and he got it professionally matted and framed and he hung it in his studio at his house. He liked being able to look up while he was recording and see it. Lance was right, it was like having a little piece of home with him. At the same frame place, he bought a plastic case for the postcard. The man at the shop told him it was for storing important photos, and John immediately bought one. He attached magnets to the back of it and hung it on his fridge. He never opened the fridge without thinking of Lance.

Lance's voicemail picks up and John clears his throat, "Hey, Lance. It's me. John. Rzeznik." He shakes his head, god, he sounds like a tool already. "It's um, about four and I was just making dinner and I was wondering if you ate anything. But you're not around, I guess, so um… I don't know, call me if you want. Or, hey, I'll be in your neighborhood later, I have to do some shit, so maybe I'll just stop by. If you're home, great, if not, that's cool, too, it'll probably be after seven. Okay. Um. That's it. Bye."

John hangs up his phone and goes back to making his dinner. He sighs, wishing Lance had answered. He wonders if Lance was ignoring his call, or if he really wasn't around to answer the phone. He wishes there was a way to see if his voicemail was picked up, if Lance maybe screened his call, then maybe listened to John's voice over and over again.

John eats his dinner then cleans up, washing the pans, wasting time until six-thirty when he can leave and head to Lance's house. He really has no reason to go to that neighborhood, and if Lance asks him what he was doing there, he's going to lie and say that he wanted to pick up some coffee from that gourmet shop three blocks from Lance's complex and Lance will have to believe him because when Lance was at John's house, he made fun of John for spending money on expensive coffee but wearing a beat up old pair of shoes.

John really can't quite figure out why he cares so much about Lance. What the hell should he care if Lance is okay or not? God, John should be running from Lance, not driving to his house. Lance is in love with John - in love! Why does John want to encourage that? He knows that he'll only break Lance's heart in the long run, if he hasn't already.

But John does care for Lance. No, he's not in love with him, but he considers Lance a friend. And that's almost laughable, because he can count on one hand the number of times that he even talked to Lance, so how could he and Lance be friends? Hell, how could Lance be in love with him? Isn't falling in love something that takes time?

John gets to Lance's house and wipes his hands on his thighs as he approaches the door. He's about to ring the doorbell when he sees a note taped to the door. _J - I'm out back, just come in_. And John assumes that's for him, but there's like a million J's just in Lance's group, so he's not sure, but he tries the door and it's unlocked, so he steps inside cautiously, "hello?" but doesn't get an answer. He walks through Lance's house, and it's mostly dark, there are no lights on in any of the rooms except the kitchen, where the light is on above the stove.

John looks out into the backyard and Lance is there, lying on his back on a blanket. There's a cooler next to him and if John squints, he can see a bottle next to Lance's hip. John opens the sliding glass door and goes into the yard, walking to the blanket and pausing when he gets next to it.

"Um. Hey," John says softly. "I saw the note on the door, I didn't know if I was J or…"

Lance glances at him, "Who else would be J?"

John shrugs, "I dunno. Aren't the guys in your band J's?"

Lance almost smiles, "Name them."

Oh shit. John pauses; there was that guy at the Super Bowl. "Joey?" he says and Lance nods. John realizes that Lance wants him to name another. John really hates this game. "Um... James?"

Lance shakes his head, "JC and Justin. And there's Chris, too." He looks back up at the sky. "I'm a James."

"Yeah?" John asks, surprised. "I didn't know that."

"Yeah, James Lance," Lance tells him, sitting up and picking up his beer. "After my dad. He's Jim. It's why I go by Lance."

John tilts his head and looks down at him, "you're not a Jim. Definitely went with the right one."

Lance smiles faintly, but doesn't reply. John stands there awkwardly and wonders what the hell he should say now. He's slightly panicked because he knows what's in his head and he really doesn't want to ask Lance if he's still in love with him. So instead he says, "What are you doing out here?"

"Drinking," Lance tells him.

"Oh," John nods. Well, this could be good, for once John won't be the drunk one. He tilts his head, "how come?"

Lance laughs bitterly and John's slightly taken aback. "God," Lance says. He shakes his head and looks up at John and John takes a step back, because Lance really looks like shit. John didn't notice before because it's kind of dark out and Lance didn't really look at him, but now he is, and John squats down and reaches out his hand, touching Lance's face briefly. Lance closes his eyes and leans into John's touch.

"You look like shit, baby," John says softly and Lance's eyes open. Lance blinks and there's tears behind his eyes and John doesn't know what to do. "Lance?"

"God," Lance says, pulling back and wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. "I'm sorry, I just…" he sniffles a bit and picks up his beer, taking a long swallow of it. "Look, I'm sorry about New Years," Lance says softly, his eyes on the blanket between his feet. "I shouldn't have said anything. I didn't mean to."

"No," says John, waving his hand, "it's cool. Really." He sits down next to Lance. "Don't worry about it."

Lance laughs again, "Is that why you haven't called? Because it's cool?"

John smiles faintly, "Hey, I never call when you tell me to, why should I start now? Didn't want you to get any ideas." He nudges Lance's shoulder gently with his and Lance laughs softly, and this time, some of the bitterness is gone.

"You want a beer?" Lance asks him and John nods, because who is he to turn down free beer? Lance hands him one and John opens it, looking up at the sky. Lance opens another of his own. "You know anything about the stars?" he asks John, and John shakes his head.

Lance leans back on his elbows and John does the same. Lance puts his head next to John and points up, tracing a star pattern. "That's the Big Dipper," and John nods, because even he knows that one. Lance traces another, "that's Gemini, the twins." He crosses his arm over John and says, "That one's Orion."

"I've heard of that," John says.

Lance smiles, "Yeah, a lot of people have."

John shakes his head, "Wait, which one is it?" He points, "Doesn't he have a belt? That's not a belt."

Lance pushes John's arm to the left, "No, there." Lance's hand circles John's wrist and his breath is hot on John's cheek. He moves John's arm to trace the constellation. John turns his head slightly and Lance's lips are right there, inches from his own.

John licks his lips, remembering Vegas, remembering a shower, remembering Lance's lips on his cheeks, remembering a bed, a hurried apology, Lance's lips brushing against his so briefly, as if his lips were butterfly wings against paper. Lance is still talking and John is just watching his lips form words and he has to look away because if he doesn't, he just might close the distance between their mouths and kiss Lance, and that is not a good way to convince Lance that he shouldn't be in love with John.

John clears his throat and sits up a bit, leaning back on his elbows. Lance moves away from him, and John wonders if Lance thinks he's sitting too close for John's liking. John reaches out and tugs Lance back next to him, pushing Lance's head on his thighs. Lance looks up at him and smiles faintly before resting his head on John's legs, lying perpendicular to John, his beer bottle resting on his stomach. John looks down at Lance, "So tell me about space. You want to go up there to get closer to the stars?"

Lance shrugs, picks at the label of his bottle. "Dunno. I guess. It's just what I always wanted to do."

John tilts his head, "Really? So the whole music thing…"

"Just a hobby," Lance says and John wants to laugh. Nice fucking hobby this kid got himself. Lance peels the label from his bottle, "Ever since I was a kid, my dad and grandpa had be outside looking at the stars. I got telescopes and books about space when other kids were getting Tonka trucks and tool kits." His eyes move back to the sky, and John looks up. "Hey, a shooting star," Lance says, pointing, "make a wish."

John doesn't see the star in enough time, so he doesn't make a wish. He looks down at Lance who closes his eyes briefly before opening them. "What did you wish for?" John asks.

Lance smiles at him, "I can't tell you. It won't come true."

John smiles and says, "So what happened with getting up there?"

"Funding. I didn't have the twenty million to go." John whistles under his breath and Lance says, "yeah. Exactly." He takes a sip of beer and says, "I'll get there one day. I wanted it too long to give up on it."

John looks down, this kid has some determination. He doesn't let anything get in the way of what he wants, and John's pretty sure that he won't let a measly twenty million come between him and the sky. "You trained, though, right? I remember seeing something on the news."

Lance grins, "Yep. Went to Russia, I'm a certified cosmonaut."

"You speak Russian?" Lance looks up at him and says something in Russian. Yeah. That's kind of hot, John thinks. "What did you say?"

Lance smiles slowly, "I can't tell you that. It's a secret."

John laughs, "Come on! Tell me!"

Lance just shakes his head. "No." He smiles, then turns serious, looking away from John. "Why'd you come here?"

John's voice is quiet, "I just wanted to make sure you were okay. That you didn't think I hated you."

Lance shakes his head, "I never thought that."

John laughs softly, "Yes, you did. Face it, Lance, I'm an asshole."

Lance nods, "Yeah, I know. But you're not." He smiles faintly, "Don't ask me to explain that, I have no idea. I just think… you try too hard to act like you don't care, but you really do. I know you do."

John takes a sip of his beer and sits up, leaning on his hands. "Can I ask you something?"

Lance smiles crookedly, "I was wondering how long it was going to take for you to ask."

"You don't know what I'm going to ask," John tells him.

Lance turns his head and looks at John. "You want to know how I can be in love with you. Or. Wait. Maybe if it's true or if I just said that."

John scowls. "Okay, fine."

Lance laughs for a minute then nods. "It's true. I am. I wish I wasn't, because I know that I'm not what you want. I'm not who you want. You don't want a guy, you want to fall in love with a beautiful girl and live happily ever after. You don't want this life, hiding and not letting people know who you really are."

"I hide a lot of things from people," John tells him. "My life isn't exactly an open book."

Lance nods, "I know. But this isn't like not admitting you have a girlfriend or not talking about your personal life. This is bigger. This can ruin your career. This is being scared that someone is going to find out and hate you because of it." He turns his head again, looking up at John. "You don't want this. Hell, you don't even want to kiss me, I know you don't want to fall in love with me."

John doesn't know how to reply to Lance, he has no idea what to say. He lifts a hand and runs his fingers through Lance's hair. "I like you, though," John tells him. "I like fighting with you, I like pissing you off."

Lance laughs, "Hey, thanks a lot," he says and John smiles.

"I thought about not calling. Just letting it go and going on my way," John tells him and Lance nods, because he knows. Of course he knows. "But. I like you and I like hanging out with you, and no, you're right, I don't want to fall in love with you, but I do want to be your friend."

"With benefits?" Lance asks, and his voice is slightly hopeful.

John laughs and tugs on Lance's hair. "Maybe. I just… I don't want you to get the wrong idea, Lance. This isn't going to go anywhere. Me and you… we'll never happen, not like that."

Lance nods and sits up, wrapping his arms around his legs. "I know," he says so softly, John strains to hear him. "You won't be hurting me."

John watches him for a minute. "You'll be hurting yourself," he says. "Are you sure you want that?"

Lance lifts his shoulders and then lets them drop. He turns his head to look at John. "If it means getting to be with you? Yeah. I'll take it any way I can get it."

*****

John's not sure that he's okay with this whole arrangement he and Lance came up with. He left Lance's house that night feeling uneasy and unsettled and still feeling like somehow he was an asshole who didn't care about Lance and what he was feeling.

Lance had told him over and over that John wasn't being a dick, that Lance could walk away any time he wanted to, that Lance was the one initiating this whole thing, that he knew what he was doing. Yes, he was in love with John, no, that hasn't gone away, but he could handle it. He knew that John didn't want the same things, that John would never want the same things and he was just going to go about this whole thing like he has been since they met.

John sighs as he enters his house. The ball is still in his court. Nothing's changed in their fucked up relationship except John knows how Lance feels. Lance still isn't going to call John, he won't bother John, won't be that clingy, annoying friend that no one wants. Lance won't bother John when John doesn't want to be bothered and if John never calls Lance again, Lance will deal with that and move on.

So if all this is true, if nothing's changed, why does John feel like an even bigger asshole than before?

John tosses his keys on the table in the kitchen and gets a beer out of the fridge. He sits on the back porch and drinks it, his head resting on the back of the chair, his eyes closed. He thinks about Lance. They talked more about space and John can't even believe the passion the kid has. He talked about going to space camp when he was a kid, he talked about his telescope and how much it cost, but how it was totally worth it with all the shit he can do. He talked about being in Russia and what he learned and he's genuinely not pissed off about not being able to go, he accepted it. Yes, he's upset, but he's not angry. John would be angry.

Lance showed John the scar from his heart surgery and John had reached out and ran his fingertip over the small white line. "Was it worth it?" John asked him. "All this - the training, the heart surgery, everything - and you didn't even get to go."

Lance nodded and pulled his shirt back down. "It was totally worth it. John, it's like…" Lance paused, searching for his words. "It's who I am. It's a part of me. It's like…. I don't make music, not in the way you do. I don't write, I don't play, and I can't sit down and start with a blank page and end up with this incredible song. I'm a geek." Lance smiled. "I'm a space geek and it's been a part of me as long as I can remember, and anything I do to further that is worth it. I can't imagine not having that in my life." John shook his head and Lance sat up straighter, facing him. "Songwriting is your life, right? Just imagine if you had to pay to do it. If every time you sat down to write a song, you had to pay a thousand dollars, no matter if you were just fucking around in your basement as a sixteen year old kid or if you were writing the next top 40 hit. And you're okay with that, you're writing like it's free and you're making progress, you're learning how to get better and better, and then one day, you ran out of money. You were told that you weren't allowed to write songs anymore. Would you just… stop trying? Would you sit there and let them tell you that you can't do this one thing that defines who you are?"

"But that doesn't define you," John said.

Lance nodded, his voice passionate, "Yes. Yes, it does. Most people don't know that, most people see me as one of the guys in *NSYNC." Lance shook his head, "But that's not who I am. That's who I was for the past few years, but that's not who I _am_. I was a whole different person before the group and that person is still inside me. And I was that person a hell of a lot longer than I've been this guy." Lance met John's eyes. "I could give music up tomorrow and I'd still be happy. I couldn't give up this." Lance waved at the sky. "I couldn't give up this," he said again, his voice quiet.

John tilts his beer bottle to his lips and takes a long swallow, thinking about that conversation. He sat and watched Lance in awe. He had never known anyone in his life to be that passionate, that devoted to something before. Lance spoke about his dreams like they were never out of reach. Lance believes it could still happen for him, and he believes it with so much hope that John believes it, too.

John wonders how Lance loves. He wonders if Lance loves with the passion he feels for his dreams. He wonders what it's like to be on the receiving end of that love, really on the end of it, full time, not what he's experiencing now. Because John's only getting part of it. He's getting the part where Lance will drop things to see him, where Lance will open up with him about what he's feeling, he'll share details of his life. He's getting the part with the fantastic fucking blowjobs and the new experiences in sex.

But he's not getting all of it. He's not getting random phone calls in the middle of the day. He's not getting little gifts that just made Lance think of him - not because it's Christmas, but just because it's Tuesday and Lance loves him. He's not waking up next to Lance and falling asleep next to Lance.

And he's not getting kisses. Perfect, mind-blowing, stop the world kisses that make John weak in the knees to think about. He's not getting Lance's hands holding his face as Lance tilts his head to kiss John deeper. He's not getting Lance's tongue dragging along his lower lip just before Lance's teeth nip at it. He's not getting Lance's breath on his lips seconds before his mouth lowers onto John's. He's not getting soft kisses across his face, over his nose and closed eyes and down to his lips. He's not getting Lance laughing against his mouth, or saying the words "I love you" against his lips. He's not getting any of that.

And he's almost sure he doesn't want it.

*****

John keeps himself busy over the next few months. He calls Lance every other week or so, and not every time is because he's horny. He calls Lance just to check in, see how he's doing. He laughs at Lance's boredom, he swears every time he talks to Lance and asks him what he's doing, he says, "God, nothing, entertain me." Lance misses being on the road, he says and he misses recording. When John reminds him that he said he could give up music and be happy, Lance laughs and says, "Yes, well, now I need something to actually do!"

John likes talking to Lance. He likes when Lance picks fights over John being cheap and he likes when Lance has stories to tell him about going to the grocery store and the guy he got behind in the checkout line. John wishes he could go grocery shopping with Lance just one time, because it sounds like Lance has a lot of fun while doing it, when for John it's a major fucking chore to go out and buy bread. Lance talks like he makes lists to go and John wonders what exactly he makes a list of, because he sure doesn't have anything in his fridge and when he mentions that to Lance, Lance says, "Alcohol, of course," and John laughs, because knowing Lance, he's not lying.

John calls Lance a lot when he's pissed off. John's been recording and he's starting to stress about a show they're doing in July, which is fucking ridiculous, because it's only the end of March and he shouldn't worry about it now, but he's John fucking Rzeznik and sometimes he thinks Worry is his middle name, so he worries. They're talking about playing a new song for the show, so now they have to actually write a fucking song and John hates when he has to write under pressure. He wrote _Gutterflower_ in two weeks and look how well that turned out for him, so yeah, John needs less pressure, please. But he calls Lance and picks a stupid fight with him about Lance falling in love too easily and it was stupid, because Lance is a nice guy and he never brings that shit up or reminds John of it and now John's using that just to get out his own fucking aggression and remind him again why he's not married? But Lance fights back and when he's had enough, he says, "Fuck you, John. I liked it better when you never called," and hangs up on him and John throws his phone across the room and doesn't bother picking it up before he just goes upstairs and to bed.

Since that night in Lance's backyard, John has seen Lance a total of three times. And each time Lance sucked his dick and gotten him off and each time John reached for Lance and only once Lance sighed and pushed him away. There was something different that night, though, John thinks. Lance had been in a bad mood when he showed up at John's house and John asked him about it, but Lance just waved his hand and reached for John's belt and John wasn't thinking about it anymore.

John's gotten better, he thinks, at blowjobs. It's not like he knows first hand or anything, since he can't suck his own dick to compare or anything, and he's pretty fucking sure he's not as good as Lance, because if John didn't recite the scales in his head or list the ingredients for a lemon meringue pie in his head while Lance was sucking him, he'd seriously come in about two minutes, because Lance has the best mouth in the history of ever. But he holds his own, he's sure about that. Lance never has any complaints anyway, and Lance is the only one who matters, since John sure as fuck isn't blowing anyone else.

In fact, Lance is the only guy John has anything to do with anymore. He still goes out and picks up women, he's been dating this one chick, Ashley, off and on for a month now, nothing serious, just having fun, but he doesn't have any urge to find a guy to get him off. If he wants that, he just calls Lance, and since Lance is more than willing to do whatever John wants him to do, John really gets the best of both worlds. And he only occasionally feels like an asshole.

John wonders sometimes how straight he really is anymore. But then he picks up a girl and he remembers why he loves them so much. Curves and soft skin and legs that go on for miles. He likes how smooth their face is when he's kissing them, he likes the needy, breathless noises they make when he does something they like. He likes the high pitched moans when they come, the way their breath catches in their throats and the way their toes curl and the way they squeeze their tits as their orgasms overtake them. Because women just let go. They have no control over anything when they come, they thrash around on the bed for minutes leading up to it and they arch their backs and lift their hips and cry out and they have absolutely no concept of anything. John fucking loves that. He loves the power he feels like he has over them in those five minutes. Because he's doing this to them, he's the reason they can't remember their own name. It's all him.

But then he's with Lance and Lance is so responsive to his touches. Lance fists John's hair in his hands and moans softly when John takes him in his mouth. Lance's voice gets impossibly deep and the rumble goes right to John's chest and it makes his dick twitch in response. When Lance comes, he bites his lip and he closes his eyes and he always, always says John's name. Lance might not remember his own name, but he always remembers John's. He likes how sensitive Lance is right after he comes, how when John tries to rub his thumb over the tip of Lance's dick, Lance jerks away, pushes weakly at John's hands in protest.

But he's not gay. He doesn't like guys, he just likes Lance. He doesn't walk down the street and notice guys, he doesn't look twice at a guy in a restaurant or in the grocery store. He only has eyes for women. He loves women.

So many he's not bisexual. Maybe he's Lancesexual. Maybe he's being a selfish asshole and wants Lance for himself, wants Lance to be at his beck and call whenever he wants him, but doesn't want to give up women. He and Lance don't actually have sex, John's dick has never been anywhere but Lance's mouth, and if only had to live with that, he'd go insane. And he's not sure he wants to do anything else with Lance. He's perfectly content with blowjobs and fingers and rimming. John hasn't even stuck his finger up Lance's ass, and he's really, really not keen on putting his tongue there, so yeah, John can't ever be anything more with Lance, because he's not ready for all that shit. He's just not.

*****

John decides to give up writing a new song to perform in July and they decide, instead to do a remake of "Give A Little Bit." When they listen to it and it's like an hour long, it's just as bad as writing a new song because now they have to pick it apart and figure out what parts they want to sing and they end up arranging it again rather than just singing a snippet of it and John sometimes hates his fucking job.

He doesn't see Lance for a month, he barely talks to him, he's in the studio all day and by the time he gets out at night, all he wants to do is come home and crash. He doesn't call much, just once or twice to say hi, and that's all he has time for before he's falling asleep on the phone. Lance never asks him to come over, he never just drops by and John finds that he kind of misses him.

Lance calls him one day, and when John looks at his display, he panics, thinking something is wrong. He's at the studio and he immediately gets up from the mixing board, tells Rob he needs to take this call, and goes outside, fishing a cigarette out of his pocket.

"What happened?" John asks when he picks up the phone.

"Hey, nice to hear your voice," Lance says, and his voice is teasing, so John's heartbeat slows down a bit, starts to go back to normal.

"Why are you calling me?" he asks.

Lance hesitates, says, "Sorry," and John realizes how harsh that came out.

"No, no," John says quickly, "I didn't mean that." He takes a drag off his cigarette and sits on the curb. He exhales and stares at the ash on the end of the cigarette. "I just meant you never call me, and now you are, and you never do, so what's up? Did something happen?"

"No," Lance says, then, "am I bothering you?"

"Nah," John tells him. "Just working, I needed a break anyway."

"Okay," Lance says, "If you're sure." John assures him that yes, he's sure and Lance says, "So it's my birthday on Tuesday."

"This Tuesday? As in tomorrow?"

"Yeah."

"Hey, why don't you tell me at the last minute?" John asks him.

"Shut up," Lance says affectionately. "Look, I'm not telling you this to get you to buy me a present. Trust me, I know how you are about parting with your money."

John smiles and drops the cigarette on the ground at his feet, crushing it out with the toe of his sneaker. "Bite me, Bass."

"Anytime you want," Lance says, and his voice suddenly drops an octave and John shudders.

"So why are you telling me?"

"I want to see you. If you can, I mean. I wouldn't normally ask, but hey, it's my birthday and if I can't ask to see you on my birthday, when can I ask, right?"

Lance is talking quickly, John wouldn't exactly call it babbling, but he wouldn't exactly not call it babbling either. John smiles and lets him talk, lets him get a bit uncomfortable when John doesn't reply, and then when Lance starts faltering and saying, "Nevermind, it was stupid, I'm sorry I bothered you, I'll let you get back to work," John finally interrupts him and says, "I'll be at your place at 5," and Lance's voice perks up, gets hopeful and he asks, "Really?" and John smiles again as he says, "yeah."

"Okay," Lance says. "Cool. Thank you."

"No need to thank me," John tells him, standing up. "It'll be good to see you."

"I want to give you a blowjob for my birthday," Lance says, and his voice is doing that dropping thing again and John groans.

"Tomorrow," John says and hangs up the phone.

*****

John leaves the studio early on Tuesday. He wants to have enough time to shower before going to Lance's house and he maybe thinks he should buy him a birthday present. He's been thinking about what to get him and he can't think of anything, and John's not really a mall kind of guy, but since he has no ideas, he's thinking he should wander around the stores for a bit and try to find something.

But when John drives past the mall, the parking lot is full, and he's not in the mood for this shit, and what the hell is he going to get Lance anyway? Lance is richer than fucking God, he has everything he could possibly want.

John wonders if he gives in and kisses Lance, if that would be present enough.

But he can't do that. Because he lied to Lance and told him he only kissed if he was in love, and he's not in love with Lance, he can't let Lance get the idea that he is.

And he's not in love, he's really not. But when John thinks about Lance, he sometimes thinks about what it would be like to kiss him. He kisses the girls he picks up and feels their smooth skin, and wonders what it would feel like to kiss Lance with a little bit of stubble on his face. He wonders if Lance's lips are as smooth as those girls, because he's seen Lance put chapstick on his lips, so maybe they would be. He wonders what kinds of sounds Lance makes when he kisses, because everyone makes sounds, whether it's small whimpers or soft sighs, but everyone makes sounds.

But since he told Lance that lie, he can't exactly back up and say, "oh, hey just kidding, I kiss people when I'm not in love," because then Lance would look at him differently and want to know why he lied, what the real reason is, and John really can't tell him that.

So John pulls into the mall parking lot and goes inside the building, trying to find something to buy him. He tries to think of something that would mean half as much to Lance as that postcard and map meant to John, but he has no idea what to get. He wanders around, thinks about maybe getting Lance some clothes, making a joke of it and buying him Fruit of the Loom three-packs or something, but then he walks past a store called The Discovery Store and he goes inside.

John spends more money than he planned on, but he ended up getting Lance a DVD set about NASA and this really fucking cool projector thing that projects planets and stars on the ceiling and the walls and yeah, okay, maybe the target audience for it was ten, but John thinks it's really fucking awesome, so he bought it anyway.

He hurries home, showers quickly and attempts to wrap the presents. The only paper he had in the house was either Christmas paper or newspaper, so he just wraps the gifts in the red and gold Christmas paper. He tries to take his time and remember how Lance wrapped John's gifts, but somehow they don't turn out well at all, and John throws them back into the bag and figures that hey, if nothing else, Lance can make fun of him and Lance loves doing that.

He gets to Lance's house only ten minutes late, and when Lance answers the door, the smile on his face is at least a little bit in relief.

"Shut up, like I wouldn't show," John tells him when he sees the look, and Lance rolls his eyes slightly and smiles. John steps into the house and smells… "You didn't attempt to cook did you?"

Lance scowls at him, "Oh god, bite me so hard," and turns to go to the kitchen. John grins, and follows Lance, dropping the bag with the presents inside the living room. Lance is at the oven, bending over and getting something out, and John takes the opportunity to check out Lance's ass.

"So how old are you?" John asks, helping himself to a beer and sitting on the barstool. "Are you legal yet?"

"You're really on a roll tonight, aren't you?" Lance says, smiling at him. "I'm twenty-five," he says and John groans.

"You're way too young for me to be fucking you," John tells him and Lance sets the dish on the stove and looks at him. John takes a drink and when he realizes Lance is staring at him, he lowers it. "What?"

"Would you?" Lance asks him.

"What?"

"Fuck me?" Lance says, and his face is turning a really nice shade of red. "I mean, I never asked because I thought…" he sighs and closes his eyes and shakes his head. "Nevermind."

John tilts his head and watches Lance. His movements are jerky, embarrassed. He's getting out a tray from the fridge and when he opens it, there's salad inside, so John assumes that Lance ordered the food in and he breathes a sigh of relief at that. Lance gets out a few bowls and puts some greens in them, setting them on the table.

Would he? Fuck Lance. Wow. This is big. Lance wants John to fuck him, Lance wants John's dick inside of him, not just in his mouth, but in his ass. Lance trusts John that much, he trusts John to have sex with him and not hurt him.

And god, this has got to be killing Lance. It has to be, John thinks. He can't imagine what it's like to be in love with someone, to be this close to having someone, and yet a million miles away. And to want more of him, really, Lance wants all of him, he wants John to fuck him, and that will just make Lance feel closer to John, and god, how is this not tearing Lance apart little by little?

John says softly, "Lance, I…" he searches for words, but none come to him.

Lance shakes his head and waves his hand, his back to John. "Hey, no worries," he says and his voice is falsely upbeat. He forces a laugh, "I know you're not into that, it's cool." He turns around and smiles at John and the strained smile breaks John's heart just a little bit.

John shakes his head, "No, Lance. No, no. It's just…" he sets the bottle of beer he was drinking on the counter and crosses to stand in front of Lance. He puts his hands on Lance's shoulders, runs them down his arms slightly. He meets Lance's eyes. "I don't want to hurt you."

Lance wrinkles his forehead, "You won't. I've done it before."

"No," John says, smiling and shaking his head. "I mean. Lance, you're in love with me. I don't want to do this and hurt you."

"Oh," Lance says and looks away from John's eyes. John really wishes he hadn't done that, because he's getting better at reading Lance, but not when he can't see his eyes. Lance is quiet for a long time, then looks back up, and now his eyes are determined and John groans inwardly, because he knows he's not going to win this. "Look, I told you before that I'll take you any way I can get you. You're not hurting me. None of what we do is you," he shakes his head, "not anymore."

John sighs, "Knowing that it's not me hurting you doesn't make it any easier, Lance. And yes, it is me, too. You think I don't know what's going to happen if I come over here? If it were all you, you'd be calling me, you'd be coming to see me, you wouldn't put this in my hands." His voice is angry, and he hates that, he wishes he could stop it, because he's not angry at Lance, he's not, he's angry at himself, he's angry at the whole situation. He's fucking pissed that Lance can't be to him what he is to Lance.

Lance bites his lip, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Please don't be mad at me. I swear, John, I'm okay."

"No," John tells him, running his thumb along Lance's collarbone. "I'm not mad at you, I'm just mad at the situation. I'm mad at myself."

"Don't be," Lance says. He laughs softly, "Come on, this is the perfect situation for you. You get off and have no strings attached."

"Yeah," John says softly, not smiling. "I guess I do."

Lance clears his throat and steps back, "Look, let's not talk about this anymore. I have dinner and then we can just hang out or whatever, okay?"

John smiles, "Sure. I have presents."

Lance raises his eyebrows and his eyes light up and John grins. Lance claps his hands together, "Presents? I told you you didn't have to do that."

"I know, but shut up, I wanted to."

Lance smiles and steps closer to John, wrapping his arms around John's waist. John slides his arms around Lance's shoulders and holds him. Lance says, "thank you," so softly against John's chest, he's not sure he even heard him. John just tightens his arms and kisses the top of Lance's head.

*****

Lance loves his gifts. He opens the DVDs and he takes out each box, reading the back of it and excitedly telling John what's on each disk. He takes out the insert and John waits the ten minutes it takes Lance to read every word printed on it. He wants to put disk one in the DVD player right now, but John makes a pained face and Lance laughs at him and sets them aside.

He takes the projector and plugs it into the wall, pushing aside his couch and the coffee table. He shuts off the lights and turns on the projector. John lies on his back and looks up at the stars dancing across Lance's ceiling and walls. He feels Lance lie down next to him and he turns his head to look at Lance, and he smiles at Lance's expression, the white lights from the stars shining on Lance's face.

"Any constellations in here?" John asks and Lance nods.

"Yeah, there's millions," Lance says and looks at John. "Look, right there," he outlines a group of stars. "That's Rzeznikics. He's the god of love. Most people assume that's Eros or Cupid, but they're wrong. Look at his big dick," Lance grins and John laughs.

"I don't know, are you sure that's the right name? With a dick like that, he must be a Bass."

Lance laughs and blushes an adorable shade of red and he sighs, resting his hands on his stomach. "This is really great, John," Lance says quietly. "Thank you."

John reaches out and takes one of Lance's hands in his. "Happy birthday," he says and smiles at Lance.

Lance turns his head and returns John's smile. He meets John's eyes and says, "I bet you know what I'm thinking right now."

John nods. "That you really want to kiss me?" he offers.

"Yeah," Lance says, licking his lips. "I really want to kiss you."

 _Me too_ , John thinks, but he doesn't say anything, he just squeezes Lance's hand. "Sorry," he says.

"It's okay," says Lance, "no big deal. I'll just have to thank you in other ways."

Lance smiles and turns on his side, running his finger along John's chest and down to the hem of his shirt. John sighs softly when Lance's finger runs over the skin at his stomach and he closes his eyes as Lance puts his mouth on John's hip, sucking the bone sticking out from his jeans.

John lets Lance touch him. He lets Lance run his hands and his lips and his tongue all over his body. He opens his eyes and is captivated by how beautiful Lance looks in the glow from the stars. His hands come up to grip Lance's arms, and Lance stops, looks up at him. John smiles softly and pushes Lance off him, rolls Lance's onto his back and presses his lips against Lance's neck.

John takes off Lance's shirt, his mouth skimming over exposed skin, tasting Lance, taking his time with Lance. John somehow feels something is changing, everything feels different right now. He's not sure what it is, but he feels like this is the last time he'll be with Lance, and that kind of scares him a bit. John's not sure he can define what he is to Lance, and he sure as hell can't define what Lance is to him, but he knows he doesn't want to lose what they have, but he just can't seem to shake the feeling that Lance is slipping away from him, even as his body is moving under him.

John takes off Lance's jeans, his mouth covering Lance's dick, his tongue lapping surely at the tip. Lance moans softly, says, "God John, I love you," and John's eyes close at the sound of the words. He moves his hand along Lance's length; Lance's moans making him hard, leave him wanting more.

John looks up at Lance and after a few seconds, Lance looks down at him, tilting his head. "What?" he asks. His voice is breathless and he is beautiful.

John nods, licking his lips. When he speaks his voice is husky, deep with lust. "I want to," he says to Lance. "I know I shouldn't do this, I know it's going to hurt you and god, Lance, I don't want to hurt you, but… I want to."

Lance smiles, slowly at first, as if he's afraid John is just teasing him, but when he realizes John is serious, his smile widens and he nods, "Okay. Okay, good. I have stuff…" he sits up, "hang on, I'll be right back. Unless… you want to go to the bedroom?"

John shakes his head, "Whatever you want."

Lance stops and looks down at him. "I just want you," he says so simply that John wants to cry.

"Go. I'll wait here."

Lance nods and gets up, heading out of the room. John takes off his shoes and socks and then his jeans, and when Lance gets back, he's naked and lying on the floor, looking up at the sky, trying to find Orion.

"You're so gorgeous," Lance tells him, standing over him, and John reaches out to circle his hand around Lance's ankle.

"Look who's talking," John says and Lance smiles, kneeling down next to him and handing him the shit in his hands.

"Okay, so not to sound like a teacher or anything, but you've never done this and I don't want it to hurt, so listen up." John nods and looks at the things in his hands. "Lube. I want you to use it, cause I've done this before, but it's been a while, so yeah. Go slow, one finger at a time, I'll let you know when I want more." John licks his lips, oh god, he's really going to do this. "Obviously, put on a condom."

"Yeah," John says. "Okay. It's cool."

Lance nods and touches John's shoulder and John looks up from his hands at Lance. Lance's eyes are expressive, John thinks; he wonders if Lance even realizes the amount of love he's showing John at this very moment. "I trust you," Lance says to him. "Stop thinking, okay? And. Well. Thank you," Lance tells him and leans forward, brushing his lips against John's quickly, it's exactly like the kiss Lance gave him on New Years. Except this time Lance wasn't getting up and leaving.

Lance pulls back and lies down and John moves between Lance's legs. He doesn't want to just jump right into this, so he goes back to what he was doing, his mouth finding Lance's dick again, his fingers circling around it. When Lance is making those breathless noises again, John reaches for the lube.

He opens the tube and squirts some of it on his fingers. He wrinkles his nose and rubs it between his thumb and his finger and it's cold. He wonders if he should blow on it to make it warm, but Lance is whimpering and John thinks that he should just get to it already.

He takes a deep breath and reaches for Lance, and Lance's legs fall open on their own. John puts one hand on Lance's hip and reaches under with the finger that's lubed. His finger slips inside Lance easily and John's more interested in the noises Lance is making than being grossed out by what he's doing. He moves his finger around and remembers what Lance did to him and he bends it at the first knuckle and Lance inhales sharply, hisses, and John knows he's doing it right.

After a few seconds, Lance is keening and begging for more, so John carefully slides in a second finger. Lance tells him to get him ready, and John's not really sure what that means, but he opens his fingers and scissors them slightly and Lance is moaning and saying, "yes, yes," over and over, so John's still doing pretty well for himself.

"One more, god," Lance says, and John's really skeptical, because this is going to be too much, but Lance's legs are falling open and he looks wanton, like a slut hired just to please John and John is kind of turned on by that, so he carefully pulls his fingers out and then slowly, so slowly, slides three inside of Lance and he practically howls and bucks against John's hand and John has to admit that he's on a little power trip right now, he cannot believe he's getting these noises out of Lance.

"Now, now," Lance is chanting and John pulls his fingers out, struggles with the condom wrapper, but manages to get it out and put it on. "More lube," Lance says, and John nods, already opening the tube and slicking it over his dick.

And fuck, is he hard. He swears he's harder than he's ever been in his life and this better be fucking good, he better not waste this fucking amazing erection he has for some really bad lay. But then he looks down at Lance, who is watching him through half closed eyes and is slowly, slowly jerking himself off waiting for John and John's ninety-nine percent sure this is going to be amazing.

"Ready?" John asks softly, and Lance moans, "God, yes, please."

John kneels in front of Lance, his hands on Lance's thighs. Lance opens his legs and John positions himself at Lance's entrance and slowly starts to press inside. It's hard. It's tight, god it's so fucking tight and how is Lance going to be able to take this, but he does, he breaths out, whimpers, shuts his eyes tightly and lifts his legs, his heels pressing on John's lower back. John's still not moving fast, he's still not inside Lance, and he's taking his time, he can't tell if Lance's eyes are screwed shut from pleasure or pain, and god, this is going to hurt Lance enough after it's over and he's still in love with John, and John's still not in love with Lance, and John just doesn't want to physically hurt Lance, too, because that would just be too much for him to deal with.

Lance groans and tightens his feet on John's back, pulling him closer, forcing John completely inside of him, and when John's buried deep inside Lance so suddenly like that, he groans himself, because Jesus fucking Christ, this is so fucking good, and John's been with a lot of women, he's had a lot of tight pussies, but nothing like this. Lance is so fucking tight around him, he's pressing against John like a woman never has and John can't breathe for a minute, he just stays still inside Lance and drops his head to Lance's shoulder, gasping for air.

Lance's hands are on John's back, starting at John's lower back and slowly moving along his spine to the nape of his neck. Lance's fingers feel like spiders dancing on John's skin and it should be ticklish, but it's not, it's Lance and it's so fucking sexy John cannot even stand it anymore. He starts to move, his body still pressed against Lance's, only his hips pulling back and sliding back in. He moans every time he slides back inside Lance, and John's wondering how often Lance will let him do this, he's almost beyond caring that he's an asshole for hurting Lance.

Lance lifts his hips to John's thrusts and John lifts himself off Lance's body, kneels on the floor and grips Lance's hips in his hands. His thumbs dig into the hollow of Lance's hips and he holds on, says, "God, faster?" and Lance whimpers, bites his lips and nods and tightens his ass around John, and all those signs point to yes, so John pulls out and slams back into Lance, and Lance cries out, his head falls back, his back arches off the floor and he screams John's name, his fingers clutching at John's forearms and John does it again. And again, and again, and again until he feels his orgasm approaching and he looks down at Lance, who is so fucking beautiful and so fucking breathless under him, and Lance's hand is moving to his dick, he's gripping it so hard John can see his knuckles turning white, and Lance gasps, "fuck, John, I'm gonna come," and then Lance is coming and his ass is clenched again, and that sets John off, and John comes a second after Lance, gasping Lance's name into the air.

John pumps his hips a few more times, milks his orgasm for everything it's worth. He relaxes his fingers on Lance's hips, loosens his grip and pulls out of Lance. He looks down and Lance's chest is heaving, his arms are at his sides, and he looks boneless. He looks well fucked, and John smiles because he did that to Lance. He fucked Lance so hard and so good that Lance can't even move. John lets his eyes move down Lance's body and he sees the white marks on Lance's hips from his fingers and he dips his head and kisses those marks, whispers "sorry," against them and Lance moans. John looks up and sees the come on Lance's stomach and chest and glistening on the tip of Lance's softening dick and John doesn't know what possesses him, but he crawls up Lance's body, his tongue flicking out and cleaning Lance up, moving from his dick to Lance's stomach, finishing with lapping the come on Lance's chest.

John finishes and he's lying on top of Lance, his chin on Lance's chest, and Lance has moved enough to put his hand under his head so he can look down his body at John. John smiles faintly up at him, "that was really… God, Lance, you're fucking fantastic at this."

Lance blushes and John reaches his hand up to run his finger over the red on Lance's cheeks. "You were amazing," Lance tells him, moving a hand to run though John's hair. Something in Lance's expression changes, and he whispers, "god, I wish you were mine."

John closes his eyes against Lance's touch and he doesn't know what to say. John can write songs that millions of people can relate to, he can somehow form sentences and put them to music and have them be played on the radio for ten fucking years, but he can't seem to find the words to reply to Lance. And somehow, that doesn't exactly seem fair.

So instead, he says, "happy birthday, Lance," and Lance's expression falters, falls for a brief moment before Lance recovers.

Lance smiles down at him, says, "best birthday, ever," and then looks away, back up at the ceiling and closes his eyes.

John moves off Lance, slides next to him, reaches on the couch for a blanket and covers both of them. He pulls Lance closer, pulls Lance's head onto his chest. He wraps his arms around this boy, this boy who loves him, who probably loves him more than anyone else John has in his life. He lets Lance run his fingers over his stomach, lets Lance whisper words of love against his chest. He closes his eyes at Lance's voice, wishes he could feel even half of what Lance feels for him. He feels tears start to leak out of the corner of his eyes, but lies perfectly still, not wanting Lance to know.

Lance falls asleep on John's chest, his arm around John's waist, his legs tangled with John's under the blanket. John lies awake for a long time, cheeks wet with tears, Orion lost in the sky on Lance's ceiling.

*****

John stays the night at Lance's, wakes up as the light starts streaming through Lance's windows. Lance groans and pulls the blanket over his head, mumbling something about it being too bright. John smiles and gets up, finding his boxers and pulling them on. He walks bare-chested through Lance's house, to the bathroom, rooting through a few drawers and finding a new, unopened toothbrush. He brushes his teeth, splashes water on his face and then heads back out of the room, going to the kitchen.

Lance has stocked his fridge since John was in his house last, and he has enough food for John to make breakfast. He hums softly as he moves around the kitchen, dicing onions, peppers, ham and cheese for omelets. He makes French toast because Lance doesn't have pancake mix, but that's okay, because John likes French toast better anyway. He cuts some fresh fruit, squeezes some orange juice and goes back into the living room to wake up Lance.

"Hey," John says, squatting down next to Lance's sleeping form. He reaches out and pulls the blanket from Lance's head and Lance moans, turning his face into his arms. John smiles, "Hey, Lance. Come on. I made breakfast."

"You mean you didn't run out on me this time?" Lance mumbles and peeks one eye out from under his arm at John. John can see the amusement glinting in Lance's eyes and he scowls. Lance laughs and rolls on his back, stretching like a cat. The blanket slips down his chest, pools at his waist and John watches him.

Lance catches him staring and smiles slowly. He sits up, completely aware of the way John's eyes move over his skin. "See something you like?" Lance purrs, putting his palm flat against John's chest. Lance's palm to John's bare skin and John wonders if Lance can feel his heartbeat, because John feels like it's about to burst out of his chest.

John clears his throat. "I do," he replies and leans forward, pressing his lips to the hollow of Lance's throat. "And it's in the kitchen." Lance groans and John smiles, getting up and heading back to the kitchen. "Come on. It'll get cold."

John doesn't look back, doesn't want to watch a naked Lance get up and put clothes on that beautiful body. He doesn't want to be affected by Lance, but he is, god help him, he is. Every move Lance makes affects John.

It's not so bad when they're not together. John can think about Lance in passing and be okay. He can go about his business, go to the studio, write songs and see something that reminds him of Lance and he's fine. He laughs or smiles and goes on his way. He doesn't have to pause and let his mind catch up with the breathless feeling in his body. He doesn't have to catch his breath because Lance takes it away.

But when he's with Lance, everything is completely different. He can't breathe. He wants to touch him for no good reason. He wants to curl up on the couch and wrap Lance in his arms. He wants him pressed against him, Lance's breath on his neck, their legs tangled together. He wants Lance across the table from him while they're eating, and he wants Lance in the same room with him while they're just hanging out. He wants Lance's undivided attention.

John smiles when Lance sits at the table in just his boxers. Lance says, "Just how many people are eating breakfast with us? Jesus, did you make enough food?"

John shrugs, says, "I didn't know what you liked," and sits across from him.

Conversation is easy, Lance is obviously tired, and he smiles at John sleepily for over half the meal before he wakes up all the way. John notices Lance's accent is thicker when he's tired, and once Lance stops yawning, he doesn't sound as much like a southern boy. John has to stop himself from feeding Lance oranges, and he can't tear his eyes away from Lance's mouth when he sucks the juice off his fingers.

Then Lance tells John that breakfast was amazing. He gets up and sits in John's lap and wraps his arms around John's neck. He looks John in the eyes, says very softly and very seriously that he has never had a better birthday. He tells John that he's amazing, he says that he knows John will never love him, but last night, Lance almost felt like what they had was real. He tells John he's going to get a shower and John could let himself out, he knows John's busy. He closes his eyes and kisses John's forehead, pressing his lips against John's skin and holding them there for a moment. He whispers so softly that he loves John, then gets up, and without looking back, leaves the room.

And when John has to physically stop himself from going after Lance and pressing his mouth to Lance's, he decides that he has to stop seeing him.


	4. Chapter 4

Since John's avoiding Lance, which means avoiding LA, he decides to spend a few days in New York City instead of heading right to Buffalo for his show. He loves Buffalo, he really does, but besides drinking, there's not really much to do there, and John thinks that he really shouldn't spend the whole month of June on a barstool. At least in New York, he can find things to do to pass the hours during the day before hitting the bars at night.

So he spends the first few days just catching up on some much needed sleep. He thinks about Lance, tries to get in a good head space about him, and he finds that he can't. He tosses and turns and dreams of green eyes and a huge smile. He showers and feels Lance's mouth pressed to his chest. He jerks off and he tries to get his hand as tight as Lance was, and somehow, no matter how much pressure he uses, it's just not enough.

He calls Lance. Not a lot, he knows he needs to back off a bit, but he calls him and tells him he's staying on the east coast at least until his show. Lance drops a few hints about coming out to see John, but John pretends he has no idea what Lance is hinting at and doesn't invite him.

He can't. He just. Can't. He's getting too close, too attached to Lance, and he doesn't want that to happen. He thinks it's because he's around Lance, they're in the same city, and no, it's not like they run into each other at all, but it's easy for John to see Lance. It's too easy to pick up the phone and call Lance, and John knows all he'd have to do is ask, and he'd be in Lance's arms before the end of the night.

And knowing how Lance feels about him, knowing all that, John just can't keep doing what he's doing. He can't keep living his life like Lance's feelings don't matter to him. Because they do. They mean a lot to John, he dies a little bit inside every time Lance reminds him that he loves John.

Lance is the nicest guy John has ever met in his life. John can't think of a single person who is better than Lance. Lance genuinely cares about people, he cares about people who say rotten shit about him, he cares about the people who say nice things about him. He wasn't deterred when John first met him, John was a compete asshole to Lance, and Lance didn't care. He still smiled, he was still nice, he treated John like John was the nicest guy in the world.

And god, Lance slept with him. John did everything he could to piss Lance off, and Lance was still willing to suck John's dick. He had to have been hurt with the way John treated him, and he still came back for more. He changed into what John needed him to be. Or maybe not what John needed, but what Lance thought John needed. And he was right. John wouldn't have given two shits about Lance if he had been this meek, mild, fey boy. Lance knew that he had to match wits with John, he knew that he couldn't let John push him around. He had to be on his toes and he had to call John on his shit, and he did that. Lance did all that and more and somewhere along the way John let down his guard and Lance snuck right on in.

But now it's over. It has to be. John hasn't been dating women as much as he should be, and he knows it's Lance's fault. Because Lance is willing and Lance will put out for John whenever John wants.

John thinks that if he could just go back to dating women, he'd be fine. He was perfectly fine with Adrienne and just having Lance once in a while on the side. Well, maybe he wasn't perfectly fine with her, because sometimes John really wanted to hit her over the head with a blunt object, but he thinks the point of all this is that he misses women. He's getting too attached to Lance because Lance is all he has right now. He's unintentionally focusing his attention onto Lance because he has no one else to focus his attention on.

He doesn't love Lance. Yes, there were times when John felt like he could say those words back to Lance and possibly mean them, but now he's taken time away from Lance, he realizes that he doesn't love him. He feels strongly for him, yes. He loves that Lance has come into his life, yes. He hopes Lance and him will stay friends, even after they stop fucking, because they really do have to stop fucking. But he's not in love with Lance. Lance isn't the first thought in his mind in the morning and the last before he goes to sleep. Lance is just a guy he thinks about once in a while. Like Rob. He's a friend. A damn good friend, but just a friend.

So John keeps on pretending Lance isn't dropping hints and doesn't invite him to New York. Then Lance finally says, "hey, I gotta go," and his voice sounds so damn sad and pathetic that it takes every single thing John has not to invite Lance to New York.

But that would be a Very Bad Idea, John thinks. This is his time. John's time away from Lance. This is the month where he forgets about the boy with a mouth that could suck golf balls through a garden hose. This is the month where John quits Lance cold turkey and figures out how to move on. This is the month John fucks women.

After a few days of doing nothing but sleeping and ordering room service, John heads out into the city. He hates Times Square with a passion he can't even put into words, but he's oddly drawn there. He goes to FAO Schwartz and he hasn't been in the new Toys R Us since it's been built, so he heads in there and spends too much money on his nieces and nephews. He talks to the manager, who does him a favor and mails all his shit to his place in Buffalo, so he doesn't have to lug it all back to the hotel, thank God.

He wanders down to Rockefeller Plaza, sees a few celebrities coming out of the NBC studios, and John thinks he should be more impressed with them, but he can't bring himself to care. He buys a hot dog and a pretzel and a can of Coke from a vendor on the street and he thinks that this might be the best meal he's had since he got to the city. This meal is real. This meal is John as he used to be. Not the John he is now, not the rockstar who drops eight dollars on a cheeseburger from room service. This meal from a street vendor cost him less than four dollars and it served the same purpose. This guy is working for his money, he's out there earning every single penny, and John feels oddly good about giving his money to this guy.

He heads out of the heart of the city and wanders to a few out of the way record stores. But when they don't have what he's looking for, he bites the bullet and has to go to a mainstream store. He fucking refuses to step into the monstrosity that is the Virgin Megastore, so he heads a few blocks down from that and into HMV.

John wanders around for a bit. He's looking for that hard to find limited print Replacements CD he heard about, but when he can't find it and the salesman has no fucking idea what he's talking about, John wonders if he made it up in his head. The salesman points him to a computer and tells him he can search for it if he wants, it'll tell him if it's available for ordering and John nods and inwardly groans. This is way too much fucking work for a CD.

Instead he moves to the bin with the Ramones and settles for his second choice. After a half hour of walking up and down the aisles and picking up CDs that he knows he'll never listen to, he decides to get some of Lance's CDs. He's relatively sure he's going to hate every single song he listens to, but he figures since he fucked the kid, he should know some of his songs.

John flips through the CDs and it's not like there's a lot of choices, but John wants to get the best choice of the ones that are there. He automatically disregards the self-titled one because everyone knows that the first CD is usually the shittiest. So it's down to the one where they're hanging from strings - and John thanks fucking god he never was on the cover of his albums, no matter what the hell his market was - and the one where they must think they're hot shit, because they're getting their photos taken. How fucking clever.

John gets both of them, the one with the strings because Lance looks fucking hot, and the one with the paparazzi because when he saw the titles of the songs, he recognized "Pop" so he figures that's a good sign.

And of course John can't leave a record store without checking out his own CDs, so he heads to the G's to make sure his fucking CDs are in a prominent position and easy to find, because John knows how the rich people live now and goddammit, he wants to live like Lance.

There's a girl with a basket over her arm and when John approaches, he sees that it's filled with his CDs. He's honestly taken aback, because why does one person need four copies of _Dizzy Up The Girl,_ but he grins anyway, because who the fuck cares, it's money in the bank. He'll be living like Lance before he knows it. The girl is holding a few copies of _Gutterflower_ in the hand with the basket and is flipping through the Goo Goo Dolls CDs in the rack. John leans against the rack behind her and watches her pick up all the copies of his latest CDs and put them in her basket.

"I'm going to go on a limb here and say you're a fan," John says to her as she turns around.

"What?" The girl looks up and her eyes get wide. "Holy shit."

John grins, "Hey."

"Oh my God," she says. "You're John Rzeznik."

John nods, "Yes, I am. And you are?"

"Melina," she says to him. "Melina Gallo." She blinks a few times, and John can see the surprise in her eyes.

He smiles at her. "It's nice to meet you." He motions to the basket. "Not that I'm complaining, because I could sure use those royalties, but what do you need ten copies of our albums for?"

She looks down at the basket, as if she's surprised she's holding something. "Oh!" She grins at him, "I'm in charge of a fundraiser for the hospital I work at. I was in contact with someone in your camp about getting you guys to sign these for us to auction off."

"Yeah?" John asks her, "That's awesome. We'll totally do it."

"You will?" her voice is excited, and just a bit breathless. John is totally digging this girl.

"Yeah, of course," he says. He takes the basket from her and leads her to the cash register. "And I got them, use the money set aside for them for something else." He smiles at her as the cashier rings him up. "They'll be one hundred percent profit for you."

"You don't have to…"

"I want to," John interrupts, meeting her eyes and smiling. She blushes faintly and John tilts his head and watches the blush spread across her cheeks.

"Thank you," she says and looks up, meeting his eyes, her voice sincere. "That's great."

John hands the cashier his credit card and says, "Are you a fan, Melina?"

She nods, "Yeah, I am. For years."

"Let me guess," John teases. ""Iris?""

She laughs and nods, "Yeah. Well, of course, but no, I was a fan before that."

"Woah," he says, signing his slip. "Old school."

She grins, "Something like that, yeah." She takes the bag from the counter and looks up at John in surprise when he takes it back.

"If you don't need these right away," he tells her, leading her out of the store, "I'm heading to Buffalo in a couple weeks to do a show. I'll get the guys to sign them and I'll send them back."

"Are you sure?" Melina asks him. "I was going to send them to your management. I'd hate to put you out."

John smiles, "I'm positive. And I'll make sure you get them back in time."

"That would so cool," Melina tells him. "Thank you so much, this is so amazing of you."

John waves his hand, "It's not even a problem." He holds open the door for her and stops on the sidewalk. "Hey, what are you doing for the Fourth of July?"

Melina shrugs, "I don't know," she laughs, "it's a couple weeks away. Probably fireworks."

"You want to come to Buffalo?"

"What? You mean with you?" she asks, then closes her eyes. "God, I did not just say that. I didn't mean to assume…"

"I know," John says, smiling at her blush, which is really fucking adorable. "But I was offering. We're doing a show up there, and I'd love it if you came. As a thank you for your support."

"Really?" she asks, her eyes wide. "Are you kidding? I'd love to go." She grins, "Yeah."

"Okay," John says and asks her for a piece of paper. "Give me your number," he says to her. "I'll call you in a couple weeks with a hotel name for you."

Melina recites a number and he writes it down and slips the paper in the bag with the CDs. "Now you better come," he says to her. "Or I'll hold your CDs for ransom."

She laughs, "I promise, I'll be there." Her eyes twinkle, "those CDs mean a lot to me."

John laughs with her. "Yeah, yeah." He glances at his watch, "I have to go, I have a thing," he waves his hand. "But you'll come, yes?"

She nods and smiles, "Yes. Definitely."

John grins and starts backing down the street. He points at her, "I'm holding you to that, Melina."

He grins at her one last time before turning and heading down the street. Okay, maybe this forgetting about Lance will be easer than he thought.

*****

John can't stop thinking about Melina. He replays their conversation in his head, he wonders if he came across as a dick or as a nice guy. He really hopes it's as a nice guy, because he really wants to get to know her better. He thinks she could be exactly what he needs to move on from Lance.

But then he finds himself comparing Melina and Lance in his head. Which is really fucked up, because there are just ways that Melina doesn't compare. She has amazing eyes, John noticed that right away, they were this greenish blueish color that complimented her olive skin and her brown hair. They were the perfect shape, and when she smiled, they seemed to light up. But they didn't compare to Lance's. John had never seen anyone with eyes like Lance. He doesn't think there's anyone on the planet with the same color eyes as Lance, and John knows he's seen people with green-blue eyes before.

But Melina is pretty fucking hot. John can't really compare the two there, since Lance is a guy and Melina's definitely not, and it be like comparing apples and oranges for Christ's sake. And John wouldn't really even know where to begin to decide if Lance is pretty fucking hot; John knows he thinks Lance is beautiful, but he mostly thinks that after he's come, when Lance is all breathless and boneless because of what John just did to him. He never really thought about Lance being beautiful just because he walked into a room.

Except that's a total lie, but John doesn't want to remember when he first saw Lance the morning after his birthday. Because that was different, John wasn't in his right mind, he was tired and he was still reeling from the night before, that's all it was.

But Melina. She's something, John knows that. He saw that as soon as she turned around and smiled at him. He smiles remembering the look of surprise on her face when she saw who it was talking to her. He loves when he can surprise his fans like that - and they end up being mostly sane, anyway. He can't wait to see her again, and he really can't wait for Rob to meet her. Finally he might be fucking someone he can bring home to meet his family.

John's excited to tell Rob about Melina, but he feels like he's going to explode if he can't tell someone about Lance. He feels like he's been keeping Lance a secret for so long that if he doesn't tell someone - anyone - about him, he's just going to die from the pressure of keeping it inside.

The problem is that he has no one to tell. How does someone tell someone else that they've been fucking around with a kid half their age who just happens to be the same sex as him? How does John even go about bringing something like that up? It's not like any of that would come up in normal conversation, and it's not something that John would really feel comfortable talking about anyway.

He's a private person. He really is, considering the business he's in. But he keeps to himself, he doesn't let people know what's going on in his mind, he doesn't want complete strangers knowing more detail about his life than he's willing to give. He hated that about Adrienne, he hated that she wanted him to attend events with her, that she wanted her photograph taken and she wanted him in the picture. No one needs to know about his personal life, it's called a personal life for a reason.

And it backfired on her. His fans hated her. She would go on the Internet and expect to see John's fans singing her praises and she never got that. They ripped into her, she was too young, too stupid, clinging to John for fame - not that he ever was as famous as say, Lance, but he's always been more famous than her. She got pissed off at him when his fans would say shit about her, and that's really horribly unfair, but John had to go along with it, apologize for them, even though all he wanted to do was scream, "I told you so," at the top of his lungs at her.

So now John's kind of in a bind. Of course he always talked to Rob, it's not like he dated people without Rob ever knowing about it. But this is different. This is Lance. But it's not like he's dating Lance, either. He's just fucking him. And that might be ending anyway if this thing with Melina works out.

Part of John wants to keep Lance secret anyway. He doesn't want people knowing about Lance, about how Lance feels about him, because then he has to justify his behavior, he has to figure out how to explain to people that he's not an asshole for doing this to the kid.

But part of him wants to keep Lance a secret because this way he's all John's. No one can ruin the impression that John has of Lance in his head. He can keep Lance on the pedestal he put him on and no one can knock him off.

But he's slowly being driven insane. Because he needs to talk to someone. He has to try to make sense of things in his head and he obviously isn't doing that great of a job of it by himself.

So John decides to talk to Rob. Rob's his best friend. Rob's been there through everything, through the start of the band, through the drinking problems, through the drug problems, everything. Rob's forgiven John for sleeping with his wife, John's pretty sure that is worse than John sleeping with Lance.

They're in Buffalo now, getting ready for the big show on the fourth. But they have the night off tonight, and John and Rob are hanging out at a bar, sitting outside and drinking. John's had a few more than he should have since they got there, but he's trying to find the courage to tell Rob that he's been sucking Lance's dick, so he figures he could use one or two more before he starts.

The bar isn't crowded and there's a breeze blowing, so John and Rob are the only two people outside on the deck. The waitress comes out every once in a while, but she can see them from the door, she doesn't have to come out to see if they need another beer. They ordered some food, and when she brings out a couple baskets of wings and fries, John figures he can't wait much longer.

"What's up?" Rob asks him and John looks up curiously. "You've been drinking like they're taking them away, and you're kind of jumpy. What's going on?"

John clears his throat, "Well, um. Okay, I…" he sighs, he can't tell Rob. But then he looks up and Rob is looking at him expectantly. "I have to tell you something and it would be really fucking great if you didn't freak out."

Rob wrinkles his forehead, "Are you quitting or something? You get another solo deal?"

"I wish," John mutters. He leans his elbows on the table and looks at Rob. "The past couple months, I've been…" he takes a deep breath. "There's this guy," he refuses to look at Rob, "I met him a while ago, and he's… he's in love with me."

"So?" Rob asks. "I'm sure lots of guys are in love with you."

Rob's voice is amused and John shakes his head, "Rob, I'm serious. He told me."

Rob shrugs, "Okay, still. So what?"

"We've been. We've…" John closes his eyes and blurts it out, "I slept with him."

Rob's quiet. Rob's quiet for a long time. John really, really doesn't want to look up at him, because he's pretty sure he knows the look on Rob's face. It would have been the same look John would have given Rob if Rob just blurted this out to him. John finishes his beer and looks at the door of the bar when it opens and the waitress comes out. Perfect fucking timing. John orders another beer for him and tells her to bring one for Rob, he's probably going to need it.

When the waitress goes back inside, John dares to look at Rob. And Rob's staring at him, his eyes wide, his mouth still open in surprise. "Rob?" John says, "Are you going to say something?"

"You slept with him?" Rob repeats. "John. You fucking slept with a guy?" His voice is incredulous and a bit loud and John cringes.

"Fuck, Rob, keep it down, will you?" John shrugs, almost helplessly. "The first time, he just blew me, and Jesus, he's fucking good at it. Same thing the second time. But then… I don't know, Rob, I felt like I should do something back, you know? And then he told me he loved me and it got all fucked up, because I don't love him. But his birthday was the other month and he asked me to fuck him."

"So you did," Rob says flatly and John's thinking Rob is really way calmer than John thought he would be.

"Yeah," John says.

"So you're gay?" Rob asks.

John looks up sharply and shakes his head, "No, no." He thinks about Melina. "No, I'm definitely not gay. I never even kissed him."

Rob laughs harshly, "Dude, you had his dick in your mouth, I'm pretty sure you're fucking gay!"

The waitress opens the door and brings out their beers and John forces a smile for her and waits until the bar door shuts behind her. He takes a long drink of his beer.

"I'm not gay. I love women, I fucking love women, Rob. Hell, I never even kissed the kid! I'm not gay!"

Rob laughs again, shaking his head, "So you haven't kissed him. Big deal. I think when you put your dick in his ass, that made you not entirely straight."

John sighs and rubs his face with his hands. This is not going well. He wanted Rob to support him on this, back him up, and Rob's not really doing any of that.

"Look, whatever, the point is that he's in love with me, and I don't know what to do."

Rob shrugs, picking up a wing and chewing on it. "Alright. So. You knew he was in love with you and you still fucked him?"

"Yeah," John says. "I'm pretty sure that wasn't the best idea I ever had."

Rob laughs at him, "Yeah, you think?" He shakes his head, "You dug your own grave, man. You knew and you still slept with him. You shouldn't have done that."

"Yeah, don't you think I know that?" John snaps at Rob. He sighs and sits back in his seat. "I haven't talked to him in a couple weeks, maybe he'll get the point." Rob raises his eyebrows and John shrugs, "It could happen."

"You're a dick, John," Rob tells him.

"Yeah. I know."

"I don't know, man. I think you should at least tell him you're not interested, that you're not going to be calling or whatever."

John thinks about calling Lance and telling him it's over. He can hear the disappointment in Lance's voice in his head and he closes his eyes, not wanting to think about it. "It'll hurt him," John says.

Rob tilts his head and looks at John. "Are you sure you want this to end?"

John opens his eyes and looks up. "What? Yeah, of course."

"You don't seem thrilled at the prospect."

"I just don't want to hurt him. Rob, he's a great guy. He's the best guy I've ever met. He doesn't deserve this."

Rob shrugs, "Then you shouldn't have let him get this far into it. You did this, John, you have to deal with it, one way or another."

"Yeah," John says, deflated. He picks at a few French fries and Rob seems to know that John doesn't want to talk about it anymore and changes the subject.

An hour later, John gets up to head home and Rob follows. He was going to walk home, but with the way his head is pounding and the way he's swaying, he figures he should maybe get a cab. He stands on the curb and waits for one.

"Look," Rob says, and John glances at him. "I should say that I don't get why you'd want to fuck some guy," Rob shakes his head, trying to wrap his mind around it, "but if that's what you're doing, then fine. I'm not going to make a big deal of it."

John's genuinely touched. Out of the two of them, Rob's more apt to talk about shit like this, to give support or to show emotion, but Rob knows that John's not like that at all, and he usually keeps things to himself because of it. Rob's never come right out and said that he supported a decision John has made; when he broke up with Adrienne, Rob had shrugged and said okay and they moved on. It's rare that Rob will let John know what he's feeling like this.

"Just be careful," Rob continues. "I don't mean about the public and all that shit, I could give a rats ass what the public thinks of us. I mean be careful. Diseases and shit."

John laughs, "Jesus, Rob, I'm not going to go out and pick up random guys. It's just him." He opens his arms, "And it's over. I don't even know why I brought it up."

Rob motions for a cab, and one pulls to the curb. He opens the door for John and John gets in. Rob leans in the window. "You brought it up because it's not over." He grins and steps back, hitting the top of the cab.

The cab pulls away before John has a chance to respond.

And it's halfway down the street before he realizes he never told Rob about Melina.

*****

John's fucking busy the day that Melina flies to Buffalo, but he manages to get someone to get a car to the airport and take her back to the hotel. He leaves a note at the front desk for her saying he'll be back before dinner and maybe they could hook up and go somewhere. He really wishes he could meet her flight, but that's just not possible with the DVD filming shit. But he manages to talk the people into doing his shit early enough that he can get a shower and head to her room before it's too late to do anything.

He wishes he were the type of guy to make really great plans, but he's not. He wishes he knew some great places to go in Buffalo to eat that weren't bars, and that he had some kind of idea what to do after dinner. But he figures if she's a fan, she knows that he's pretty fucking low maintenance and she shouldn't expect wine and roses.

He showers and puts on a pair of cargo pants that look exactly like the ones he was wearing earlier in the day, and he scowls and wishes he brought one fucking pair of jeans with him. He really, really hates living in LA, he never remembers that he needs clothing other than wife beaters and a pair of shorts, so he ends up forgetting something at his place. So he has to settle for the cargos, but he manages to find a tee shirt at the bottom of his bag, and it smells clean, so he goes with that.

John knocks on her door, and she answers it almost immediately and looks pretty much ready to go, and John's really fucking happy about that, he's pretty hungry and he didn't want to wait around for her to be ready.

She grins at him, "Hey. It's great to see you. This room… wow, John, this is nice."

John stands in the doorway awkwardly. He was hoping to hug her, say something nice about how she looked, but she just started talking and then turned to look back at the room, and well, that just ruined the hug. He smiles, "Hey. And yeah, nicest place in the city. I'm glad you like it."

She nods, "It's really great. I love it." She turns back to him, smiling faintly.

John shoves his hands in his pockets, "How was your flight?"

Melina nods, "Good. No problems at all. I'm starving, though, they didn't give us food."

"Oh," John says, "you should have ordered room service, that's not a problem, I'll take care of it."

She shakes her head, "Nah, I got your note." She motions to the note on the table, "I figured I could wait."

John pushes some hair off his face, "I hope you weren't waiting long."

She shakes her head, "Nope. I showed and just got done getting dressed when you got here." She smiles up at him, "perfect timing."

John laughs, "Don't get used to that." He nods towards the door, "You ready? I figure we could just grab wings, they make awesome wings in the city. Oh, unless you don't want that, there's an Italian place a few blocks down."

She shakes her head and picks up her purse, putting her hotel room key in it. "Honestly? Wings sound awesome. It's been a while since I had good ones."

John leads her out of the room, and they head down the hallway, talking about wings, and comparing different kinds. Their conversation is easy, and John's really grateful for that. He hates when he dates a woman and they have nothing to talk about. But Melina's different, John feels like he knows her, which is just fucking stupid, but he likes talking to her.

She reminds him of Lance a little, he thinks, and that kind of makes him want to stop the date and call everything off. But they're alike in a lot of ways. Lance never misses an opportunity to tease him, and they're not even halfway through dinner and John already knows that Melina will keep him on his toes. Lance touches him a lot, small touches on his arm, or he'll lean against him when he's walking past John, and Melina does the same thing. She leaned over him for the blue cheese and she put her hand on his arm to reach across him. And John's pretty sure they both use the same shampoo because he totally smells that citrus smell in Lance's hair, too.

John gets quiet as the meal passes on. He doesn't mean to, and he's not really completely aware that he's doing it. On some level, he knows he is, but he thinks he's hiding it from Melina pretty well, he doesn't think she can tell.

"Hey, are you okay?" she asks him and John sighs. Guess she could tell after all.

"Yeah, I'm good, why?"

Melina shrugs and wipes her mouth. "I don't know. You just seemed to be lost for a minute there."

John chews the inside of his cheek and wonders how much he can tell her. He's thinking about Lance, and it's really not fair to her if he's not in this with everything he has. But he just met this woman, he has no idea if he can trust her or not. She might just be using him to get her CDs signed and tomorrow she might get the next flight out of here and forget that she ever met John Rzeznik.

She reaches across the table and puts her hand on his, and he looks down at her fingers. She's brushing her fingers lightly across the back of his hand and when she tells him that he can talk to her, her voice is quiet and when John looks up and meets her eyes, they're sincere.

"There's this… I just got out of something," John sighs. He can't tell her about Lance, he can't. But he can tell her most of the truth.

"Okay," she says slowly, and while she doesn't move her hand away, her fingers stop moving. When John doesn't say anything for a minute, she says, "So…"

"So," John says, swallowing thickly, looking away from her eyes. "I don't know. She's in love with me, and I'm not in love with her, but we… we did stuff…" John closes his eyes, god, this was a bad idea, he feels like she knows he's lying to her, "and I don't want to hurt her. Or you," he adds quickly, "I like you and that's why I'm telling you this."

Melina tilts her head. "You're not in love with her?" John shakes his head, and she says, "but you've fooled around with her?" John nods. She takes a deep breath, "Okay. That's not a big deal."

John shakes his head, "I like you, I really like you."

Melina bites her lip and John watches her. He can tell she's thinking about all this and he curses himself for even saying anything, because once again his big mouth went and ruined everything, and he wasn't even comparing her to Lance, not really, and now he's not going to have her, and he's sure not going to go back to Lance, and he might as well just call Adrienne, because if he doesn't call her, John's going to be alone forever.

She lets out a breath and says, "John, I like you, and I appreciate that you told me about her."

"But?" John asks her, because John can tell with the way she ended that sentence that there was a but coming.

"But maybe you're not ready for this, for me." She looks up at him, "I don't want a fling, and I really don't want to scare you off or anything, I'm not looking for marriage, but… I don't want to be one of your groupies."

"Oh, you're not," John says, turning his hand up to catch her fingers in his. "You're really not."

"I don't think I am," she tells him, "but maybe you should take some time. Take a few weeks to figure out if I'm what you really want."

"You are," John tells her. "I mean it, you are. I decided I didn't want anything more from her weeks ago."

"Then why are you still thinking about her?" Melina asks him softly. She smiles, "John, it's okay. I just want you to make sure you know what's going to make you happy."

John slumps in his chair. "She's a good person, I just don't want to hurt her."

"You're a good person, too," she says, squeezing her fingers. "She picked a good guy to fall in love with."

John smiles faintly, "Yeah, she thinks so."

"She's right," she says. She smiles and pulls her hand back, picking up one of the wet wipes the waitress brought for them, and wipes the wing sauce off her fingers. "Now, let's not talk about her anymore. Let's have some fun."

John grins and sits back and lets her plan the rest of the night.

*****

Except for the rain, the show was fucking awesome, John thinks. He was on, Rob was on, Mike was on, every fucking thing was just so, so on and the show was amazing. Melina was on the side of the stage, and she was completely dry, so afterwards, John had to wrap her in a big hug and make her wet, of course. She laughed and tried to push him away, and Rob grinned and told him that he'll chase her away if he keeps it up, and she said something back to Rob that was making fun of John, and John grinned as he watched them, because it was just really great that Rob got along with Melina so well so quickly.

She rides back in the van with them to the hotel and her and John talk quietly between them. John doesn't really know what he's saying, he knows it has to do with the show, but his mind is still in his after-show mode and his brain is still reeling, and his teeth are chattering just a little bit because now he's fucking cold, and he's wondering if he'll be able to convince Melina that he likes her enough to let him kiss her.

John invites her back to his room and she smiles softly before accepting and they ride the elevator in silence because Rob is doing a lot of talking, but somewhere between floors one and seven, Melina has taken his hand and John wants to grin like an idiot, but he manages to keep it to himself.

He opens the door to his room and she closes it behind her. John tells her to make herself comfortable, but he really has to get a shower because he's sweaty from the show and also fucking cold. Melina ducks her head and looks up at him through her lashes when she says, "mind if join you?" and John has to close his eyes, because this is so fucking great, it's exactly what he wanted, but he really wishes the circumstances were just a little bit different, because he's having flashes of New Years Eve in his mind, and he really does not need to be thinking about Lance right now.

Melina joins him in the shower and John does his best at not thinking about Lance. It's hard, though, because he can't help but compare Lance in the shower to Melina in the shower. Melina's slower, he thinks. She touches him hesitantly; she's touching him for the first time, trying to learn what his body likes. Lance touched him deliberately, he had touched John before, he knew exactly how to touch John to get the reaction he wanted.

But Melina kisses him. Melina kisses him and uses her tongue and makes little whimpering noises into John's mouth when he slides a wet finger over her nipple. Melina sucks on his tongue when he palms her breast, kneading it. She presses against him and licks his lips as he fingers slowly slide their way along her flat stomach and over her hips and when he finally presses a finger inside her, she moans loudly and moves those lips from his mouth along his jaw. He likes the way she kisses him, he likes how he can tell when he does something right because her tongue moves just a little bit faster in his mouth. He likes being able to swallow her sounds, he tastes her words and swallows them whole.

He turns off the water and they dry themselves off while backing towards the bedroom. She falls on top of him on the bed, her long hair in his face. She takes charge, she straddles his legs and works her hand on his cock, and he groans and moans, "tighter," and she complies, she doesn't bitch to him like Adrienne used to, she listens to him and he closes his eyes and thinks of Lance, and he's impossibly harder now, and she kisses him as she lifts herself onto his dick, slowly, slowly sliding him inside her.

She's not as tight as Lance, and John doesn't think any woman ever will be. But she's wet. God, she's so fucking wet and she's so fucking into this, John can tell, he can tell by the way she kisses him, by the way she rides him. She rips her lips from his, arches her back and throws back her head and John groans at the sight of her on top of him. His fingers dig into her hips, pulling her down tighter, lifting her then pulling her down again. His hips surge up to hers and his fingers slide off her hips and to her clit, and she cries out, "John," and is coming almost immediately. She clenches something and she tightens around John, and it's still not as tight as Lance, but it's a little bit better and he comes a minute later, panting her name and trying to catch his breath.

She collapses on top of him and he raises his hand to play with her hair. She lifts her head and smiles slowly at him and he returns the smile, pulling her down for a kiss.

She kisses him for a minute, then carefully lifts herself off of him, taking off the condom and walking to the bathroom to throw it away. She comes back and John opens his arms and she crawls into bed next to him, her head on his chest. She doesn't say anything, and John takes his cue from her and is quiet. He wishes he had his cigarettes, but they're in the pockets of his pants, and Melina doesn't know that yet, she doesn't know that whoever throws away the condom has to get John's cigarettes.

She sighs and props her chin on his chest, looking at him. "I'll give you a couple months," she tells him. "I don't think you're ready for this right now, I think you should go home and talk to her." She kisses the center of his chest, "and no matter what, I won't get mad or pissed off at you. But I really hope when I come out to LA in a few months that you're ready for this. Because I really like you."

John wraps her hair around his hand and smiles. "I'll be ready. I promise."

*****

John goes back to LA and doesn't call Lance. He decides that he really, really likes Melina, and she says she's going to be heading to LA at the end of November, and he wants to be able to tell her that yes, he's completely over the person he had a thing with, and yes, he's completely ready for whatever it is they're going to do.

So that gives John five months to get his head on straight. It gives him five months to be in LA and not see or talk to Lance, it gives him five months to forget about the kid with the mouth that should be in a museum somewhere and the ass that's so tight John dreams about it.

Piece of cake, John thinks. He has absolutely no reason to talk to Lance at all. It's not like they run in the same crowds, John has never once seen Lance anywhere out, so it'll be fine. Easy. No problem.

Except John wasn't counting on thinking about Lance. He figures that Lance is out of sight, out of mind, and when that backfires on him, he's surprised and angry and just a little bit pissed off at himself. So John throws himself into work.

He produces a pop album. He's only really proud of one song on the album, and it happens to be the song he co-wrote. He's not really sure what producing this kid's album is going to do for his career, except the kid is dating one of the Simpson girls, and John figures that alone will get the kid publicity, and in turn, John will get publicity and hey, that's never a bad thing. And John's smart enough to know that he's not going to be recording and touring for the rest of his life, so he might as well get some production experience for a band besides his own under his belt.

It turns out it's not as bad as John expected it to be, he finishes the album when he gets back from Buffalo and he invites Ryan over to listen to it. Ryan shockingly comes alone, without his girlfriend, and he accepts a glass of wine John offers. John doesn't ever remember buying the wine, he wonders if Lance gave it to him and he just forgot about it. Then he wonders just how old it is, because if Lance didn't give it to him, it might have been here with John bought the house.

They listen to the album and drink the bottle of wine, and Ryan really needs to learn how to hold his alcohol, because he's drunk after four glasses. John's mostly sober, considering he drank most of the bottle. But he's just drunk enough that if he squints, Ryan's hair reminds him of Lance's, and John wonders what it would feel like to have Ryan's hair between his fingers, because he bets that it's not as soft as Lance's hair, he bets that Ryan puts a lot more shit in his hair than Lance does.

When John realizes where his thinking is going, he abruptly stands up and says, "Okay, you gotta go," to Ryan. It's not that John would ever, ever let Ryan suck his dick, he's not into that at all, it's that even this kid that's not half as good looking as Lance on his worst day is making John think of Lance, and this is his five months to forget about Lance, and he can't do that if he's thinking about him.

Ryan blinks up at him and nods, "Okay. Call me a cab?" and John rolls his eyes and turns to pick up his phone. He's on hold when he hears Ryan say, "oh shit," and he turns around to see a dark red stain on his pristine white rug.

"Fuck!" John says, hanging up the phone. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry," Ryan says, "I stood up and swayed and I just… I'm sorry."

John groans and watches the stain set in. "Great. Here, call a cab, just hit redial," he tosses the phone to Ryan and goes into the kitchen to get some paper towels. He has no idea how to get red wine out of carpets and if he has to replace the whole carpet, that little shit is totally paying for it.

He's on his hands and knees blotting the stain when a horn beeps. "That's my ride," Ryan says and John looks up.

"Yeah, okay. Hey, great album, good luck with it," John tells him, and he means it. He hopes Ryan does well with it, because he'll need the money to pay for John's carpet.

Ryan grins, "Thanks. For everything, you were awesome, this was just great."

John smiles, "You're welcome. See ya."

Ryan flashes him another smile and stumbles to the door. John sighs and looks back at the stain, which he really thinks has gotten worse. He sits back on his heels and curses.

He tries to remember how to get the stain out, and he can't think of anything besides club soda and he's pretty sure that's not what he should use. He picks up his phone and scrolls through the numbers.

"Hello?"

"Hey, how do you get red wine out of carpets?"

"What?" Lance asks him, and John smiles at the confusion, smiles at the fact that Lance even picked up his phone for John when John hasn't called him in months. And then he just feels like an asshole, because Lance is used to John not calling him unless he needs something.

"Some prick spilled red wine on my carpet. How do I get it out?"

"On the white one?" Lance asks, and his voice is incredulous. "What the hell were doing drinking red wine in there?"

John rolls his eyes, "Look, mom, I don't need a lecture, I just need to know how to get it out before it sets in."

"Hang on," Lance tells him and John can hear a keyboard, Lance must have been in his office when John called. John pictures Lance behind his desk with the phone cradled between his ear and his shoulder, and that picture is really fucking sexy, and John needs to get off this phone right fucking now, because he's already falling back into the trap of wanting Lance.

"Um," Lance says and John waits for his answer. "Okay, it says on this site to use some kind of dishwashing liquid and hydrogen peroxide. Just mix the two and let it set on the stain. Oh wait," Lance says, "um, if you're doing it on a carpet, put the peroxide on first and then use a fiber cleansing formula, that way it's not a soapy spot."

"Great," John says. "Keep looking, I don't have peroxide or fiber cleaning soap in my house."

There's a short silence and Lance says, "Do you want me to bring you some? I have some at my house."

John stops. It's on the tip of his tongue to say, "yes, please, come right over and clean my carpet" but he hesitates, because he knows how that will end. He thinks through this in his head, he wonders if he can tell Lance that yes, he'd like him to come clean his rug, but no, please stay out of his bed. He wonders how pissed off Lance would be.

"Um," John says and Lance interrupts, "Hey, Nevermind. Just. Go out and get some. Good luck."

John can tell that Lance is ready to get off the phone, he can tell from the tone of Lance's voice that Lance got the picture loud and clear, and he hates that he feels guilty, because this is what he wants, John wants Lance to get the picture, he just doesn't want to hear the guilt in Lance's voice.

"No, come over," John says. "I can't drive right now, or, I can, but I shouldn't, I had most of the bottle of wine, and I don't want this to set in, even though that little shit will be paying for it if it doesn't come out."

"You sure?"

"Yeah," John says, nodding. "I'm sure."

"Okay. I'll be there in a couple minutes."

John hangs up the phone and leans against the couch, putting his head in his hands. Well. This wasn't exactly how it should go. This isn't the way to forget about Lance.

No sex. No sex, no sex, no sex. John just repeats that in his head over and over again. Easy. No sex. He just got laid a couple weeks ago, hell, he got laid a lot a couple weeks ago, and Melina is perfect for him. He knows this and he knows they'll be happy if he can just get over the sex thing with Lance.

So this is like a test, John thinks. If he can have Lance in his house without wanting Lance's mouth on his cock, he passes. That's not really fair, John thinks, because he's a guy and guys think about sex kind of a lot. It's not his fault if he thinks about Lance sucking his dick, hell, he'd be weird if he didn't think about it. Because it's been done. Every time John runs into one of his exes, he thinks about the last time he had sex with her, it's not any different when he sees Lance. His mind just flashes to Lance blowing him, or John fucking him. It's just natural.

Natural, dammit.

There's a knock on John's door and John just closes his eyes and yells, "come in," and he hears the door open. He doesn't open his eyes, but he knows the second Lance steps into the room. The air changes, somehow, it's charged with Lance's energy.

"Hey," Lance says quietly. John hears a plastic bag rustling. "I have the stuff."

John sighs and opens his eyes. He lifts his head off the couch and looks at Lance. Lance looks really fucking good. He's wearing glasses, and John can't take his eyes off of them. "Great," he says. "Thanks."

Lance nods and takes a few steps towards John, and John tenses because what the hell is Lance doing? Lance drops to his knees next to John and opens the peroxide, and John relaxes, because oh, right, the stain. Lance opens the peroxide and dumps some on John's rug. He lets it sit for a few minutes. Lance is quiet and John's not really sure what to say, so John's quiet, too, the both of them watching the stain like it'll magically disappear.

John clears his throat and picks up the bottle of wine he left on the coffee table. He drinks right from the bottle. "Is it working?"

Lance shrugs, "I don't know." He doesn't look at John when he says, "I was surprised to hear from you. Thought this was over."

"What was over?" John asks dumbly.

"This," Lance says, finally looking at him. "Us."

Maybe it's the alcohol, maybe it's because Lance is too close to being right, that they are an 'us,' or maybe John's afraid of what he might do if he drinks more wine and Lance keeps looking at him like that. Maybe it's all those things or maybe it's none of those things, but John says harshly, "There's no us, Lance."

Lance blinks, probably at the tone of John's voice, and he says, "Oh. Right. We were never an us, we were just a fuck, right?" He stops and tilts his head, his voice changing slightly to sarcastic. "Oh wait. That was just me. I was just the fuck, you were always the fucker, right? Cause if I don't stick my dick in you, you're not getting fucked."

"Yeah," John says, "exactly." He doesn't really know why he's doing this, because this isn't how things should go, but hey, it seems to piss Lance off, and maybe if Lance is pissed, he'll go away and finally get out of John's head, and that's what John wants.

Lance narrows his eyes and he says, "Well. You really are a fucker, aren't you? And not in the good way."

John smirks, "You didn't seem to mind."

Lance inhales sharply, and his face falls slightly. John can see it, he sees how Lance's expression falters before Lance catches it and forms it into something neutral. John feels a stab of pain in his chest, he really hates this. He wishes he could reach out and touch Lance and apologize, tell him he didn't mean it, he's just being a dick because he's worried Lance is too close. But he can't. This is what John has to do, and maybe if John went back to being the dick that he was when Lance first met him, this freight train they're on could crash and burn and finally, finally be finished.

"In fact," John says, "I seem to remember you telling me I was the best lay ever."

Lance swallows and lifts his chin. Head held high, John thinks. Lance is going to go out with style, that's for sure. "You were," Lance says. "If only you were half the man outside the bedroom as you are inside."

John manages not to change his expression and he doesn't let Lance see how much that hurt. Because Lance has changed him, can't Lance see that? Can't Lance see that this is all an act, that John really is a better person?

Instead, John lifts his shoulder in response and lets it drop. "Yeah well. You knew from the beginning that I was an asshole."

Lance stands up. "Yeah. I just didn't realize how much." He doesn't bother picking up the peroxide or carpet cleaner he brought. "Fuck you, John. Don't bother calling me again, I'm not going to answer." He takes one last look at John and then turns on his heel.

John hears the door slam behind Lance and he finishes the bottle of wine.


	5. Chapter 5

John keeps busy. He doesn't call Lance, he doesn't call Melina, he doesn't call anyone except Rob, and that's only when he has to. He does some shit for the Democratic convention, he tries to sit down and write songs, but they're all coming out bitter and angry, and he did that for _Gutterflower_ , that shit's old, he needs new material, but with Lance out of his life and Melina barely in it at the moment, John's not feeling really fucking happy.

The band does a show at some state fair in California and John shows up drunk, but it's okay, because Rob's drunk, too, hell, over half the fans in the crowd are drunk and they have a fanfuckingtastic time, and John's half convinced he should do every single one of his shows drunk or high. Or possibly both.

He gets an invite to go to Vegas for some Rock Star Poker thing, and John doesn't know jack shit about poker, but Dave Navarro is going to be there, and John's a big fucking fan of his - and maybe Carmen will show up - so John immediately says yes and then decides he needs to learn how to play poker.

He remembers that Lance is a big card player, and he picks up his phone and actually dials Lance's number before he remembers that Lance basically told him to drop off the face of the Earth last time Lance saw him, so John hangs up. Instead, John gets in his car and drives to Borders and hopes there's a book called "Poker for Dummies," because that's exactly what he needs.

John figures he'll get to Vegas early and he'll hang out at a few tables, maybe play a couple games, get the feel of it before he has to make a complete ass of himself at a poker table with a bunch of rock stars and their fans looking on. He supposes that it's not really going to matter much, John's going to make an ass out of himself anyway, but hey, he'll be among friends. And everyone knows Dave Navarro is going to win, so why they're even bothering to show up is beyond John.

The game is on a Saturday, so John flies into Vegas on Wednesday. He spends all day Thursday and Friday in the casinos, wandering around playing slots. He tells himself that this is not what he should be doing, he should be in the rooms where the Texas Hold 'Em tables are set up, but slots are more fun. And also, you don't have to know anything to put a quarter in and pull a lever. John likes games like that.

He's up a couple hundred bucks on Friday night from slots before he ventures onto the floor and to where the tables are. He wanders around, watches a hot blonde chick with a nice rack throw the dice a few times at the Craps table. He waits for her tits to fall out of her low cut dress as she leans over the table, but they never do, and after the six or seventh time of her giggling and squealing, even John decides that a glimpse of tit is not worth that woman's annoying voice, so he moves on.

John turns his head and sees Lance out of the corner of his eye, but when he turns his head, Lance is nowhere to be seen. John closes his eyes and shakes his head slightly, because now he's seeing Lance in places Lance really is never going to be, and god, isn't he supposed to be moving on?

John sits down at a five dollar a hand table, he read in one of his books that the cheaper the buy in, the better the chances are of the players being beginners and the dealer helping them out along the way, and five bucks is way cheaper than John expected to find in Vegas, so this is a great place to start. In a shocking turn of events, John knows what he's doing, he managed to retain a lot of information from his stupid poker book and pretty soon John is wiping the table with the other players. They don't like that too much, and John sure doesn't need any more of their money, so he gets up, tips the dealer and heads back to his room.

He feels like he should go out and get drunk. Or maybe he should go out and get drunk and go to a strip club because that's what people do in Vegas, right? But John's not really into strip clubs, he went to one once in New Orleans and it was basically the most uncomfortable experience of his entire life. Maybe John's an idiot, but he was never sure where to put his hands, and so after ten minutes, he headed to the bar where he didn't have to worry about things being in his face that he wasn't allowed to touch. So he supposes a strip club in Vegas is out of the question, and he probably shouldn't drink since the card game is the next day.

So John orders room service and a pay per view movie and is in bed by midnight. He is officially the biggest loser in the city. But he wakes up the morning of the game feeling amazingly refreshed and wide awake, and it's been a long time since that's happened, so he supposes he'll just keep it to himself that he was in bed that early.

John wastes the morning doing absolutely nothing. He spends part of the afternoon at the bar, and he heads to the room for the poker game a few minutes early. He hangs out with Dave, loosens up a bit more by drinking and by the time the game starts, pretty much everyone is feeling good. No one is over the top drunk, so that's good, and the fans are really into everything, and that's even better and John's having a pretty good time, which surprises him.

He folds more than he plays, but when he plays, he bets too big and loses big, so he thinks that folding a few hands and playing it safe is probably a good idea. Then he looks up at someone in the audience who yells down something to Tommy Lee and he sees Lance.

This time John sees him. He's not a mirage or a trick of the lights or John seeing what he wants to. He fucking sees Lance. He sees him sitting behind and to the left of the guy talking to Tommy and he's just fucking sitting there looking at John and John can't look away.

Lance doesn't smile. He doesn't smile, he barely blinks, he doesn't even move. His stare is unnerving and John feels a tightening in his chest until he remembers to breathe. What the hell is Lance doing here? What are the chances that Lance is in Vegas the exact same time John is? Did Lance plan this? Why would he, if he did? Did he come here hoping to see John? Maybe what he said to John at his house was a lie; maybe Lance does want to see him again.

But wait. Hold up. This isn't what John wants. John breaks the stare with Lance and goes back to playing cards. His mind is still working overtime trying to figure this out, and he can feel Lance's eyes on him, he can feel the stare, and he loses the next three hands and has to go all in on the fourth just to try to get some chips back.

It's a futile attempt, though. John wins that hand, but loses the next one and the second time he goes all in, he can't get the card he needs for the flush and Dave Navarro kicks his ass with a full house. John shrugs and gets up from the table, he figures if he has to lose, it should be Dave getting him out, so it's all good by him. He crosses behind the table, waves to the crowd and heads out of the room.

John doesn't think about Lance. He heads right to the bar and orders a beer and prays to God that Lance doesn't come find him. Because John is just not drunk enough to deal with Lance right now, and how the hell is it that whenever Lance is willing and John should be thinking about things, he's fucking loaded and now that there's no chance in hell of John getting laid and he doesn't have to think, the alcohol John drank has no effect on him?

John drinks his beer and someone sits next to him at the bar. He doesn't have to look up to know it's Lance. "What do you want?" John asks him, not nicely. "You stalking me?"

Lance snorts, "You fucking wish," he says, and John can hear the slur in Lance's voice. He glances at Lance and now that he can see him up close, he can see that Lance is loaded. Well. This is a nice change of pace.

"Whatever, Lance," John says, "you ended it, how about you leave me alone?"

"I ended it?" Lance says, incredulous. "According to you, there was nothing to end!"

John turns to him, his eyes angry, "You're fucking right there was nothing! We were nothing. You are nothing." John closes his eyes, shakes his head and sighs. "No, I didn't mean that."

"What did you mean?" Lance asks, his voice even.

John chews his bottom lip and looks at Lance. "You're a great guy. You deserve better than me."

Lance's voice softens and John really wishes Lance weren't drunk, because he has a feeling Lance isn't exactly censored when he's drunk. "I wanted you," he says with feeling, and John closes his eyes.

"You shouldn't," John tells him.

"Don't you think I fucking know that?"

"Then do yourself a favor, go back to your room and forget about me," John says, turning back to the bar.

Lance stands next to John without saying anything for a long time. Finally, he pushes himself off the bar and turns to leave the casino and doesn't look back.

*****

John's phone is ringing. He can hear it even though he put a pillow over his head to block it out. And Jesus Christ, shouldn't it have gone to voicemail by now? It will not stop fucking ringing. John looks at the clock on the nightstand, and it's after four in the morning and his phone is still ringing. He squints into the darkness and tries to determine where he left his pants with the phone in the pocket. He slowly sits up, cursing himself for not turning it off, and blindly reaches on the floor, hoping he dropped his pants next to the bed.

He's half way out of the bed reaching when his fingers come in contact with the fabric of his pants. He pulls his pants closer and takes out his phone, silencing the ring and laying back on the bed, his arm over his eyes.

"Someone better be fucking dead," he says into the phone.

"John?"

"Yeah?"

"It's Lance."

John sighs. Shit. What the hell does Lance want? John's mind flashes back to Lance drunk at the bar and he says, "What happened? Are you okay?" and he can hear the panic in his voice.

"I'm lonely," Lance says, and John groans. "Can I see you?"

"Lance…"

"No," Lance says. "Shut the fuck up," and John smiles. Lance is still drunk, John can hear it in his voice and he wonders if Lance has even gone to bed yet. "It was my decision to stop seeing you, so it's my decision if I want to see you again. And I decided I want to see you again. You're an asshole and you treat me like I'm some whore you can call whenever you want to get laid, but I don't even care about that right now, I just want to see you." He drops his voice, "I want you to fuck me, John."

John groans again and curses his dick for twitching in response to Lance's voice. This forgetting about Lance thing is really not going the way John planned at all. He thinks that maybe he should just move to Alaska and not have a phone or cable or the Internet or anything that links him to the outside world and maybe then Lance wouldn't be in his head. He has enough money, he could totally live on what he has made already.

"John," Lance moans and John blinks back to the phone call. "I'm touching myself," Lance tells him and John swallows thickly and closes his eyes, which doesn't help at all, since now he just has that image behind his lids. "I'm touching myself and thinking of you. Please, John?" Lance asks him, "Please let me see you."

John shakes his head and says, "Okay," and then curses, because that's not right at all, he was supposed to say no. He says, "Where are you? Because you're not going to drive."

"I'm at my house," Lance tells him and gives him an address.

"You have a house in Vegas?" John asks, surprised. Jesus, this kid has houses all over the fucking place.

"Not important," Lance says, "I'll be waiting," he tells John and hangs up the phone.

John's up and out of bed before he even realizes it. He's dressed and looking for his keys before it registers that this is not a good idea, this is not what John should be doing, this is the exact opposite of what John should be doing. But he does it anyway. He gets dressed and goes outside and finds a cab easily in the early morning hours, and he tells the driver Lance's address that he didn't even have to write down, because as soon as Lance said it, it was fused into John's brain, and he sits in the backseat of the cab, his leg bouncing up and down in anticipation.

Lance's house is dark except for a light in one of the upstairs rooms. John assumes it's the bedroom. He throws money at the driver without counting it and heads to Lance's front door. The door opens before he even knocks and Lance, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers, pulls him inside, shutting the door and pressing John against it and pushing his shirt over his head. Lance's hands are moving on John's chest and when John reaches to steady himself against Lance's chest, his hands touch bare skin.

"God, it's about time," Lance murmurs and his mouth is on John's collarbone. "Wanted you so bad," he says, his tongue sliding along John's skin. John sighs softly and slides his hands to Lance's hips, curling his fingers around them. "Missed you," Lance says and moves his mouth lower, over John's breastbone.

"God, Lance," John breathes when Lance covers his nipple with his mouth. Lance takes the bud between his teeth and tugs on it lightly, licking it. Lance's fingers are working on the other nipple, hardening it between them. John feels Lance sigh against his skin and his hands move to fist in Lance's hair.

Lance stands up and sways slightly, but John's hand is still on Lance's hip and he steadies him. "Woah," John tells him, "easy."

Lance waves his hand, "'m fine," he says and his eyes are dark, his voice husky. "Come on, I want you right now." He turns and takes John's hand and John doesn't even have a chance to look around before Lance is pulling him upstairs and into his bedroom. The light is on, but it's dim, shadows cast on the walls. Lance turns and pulls John towards the bed, falling on it and pulling John on top of him.

John forces himself to not think about kissing Lance. He refuses to look at his mouth; he refuses to think about what it would feel like to have Lance's lips against his, his tongue in Lance's mouth. He doesn't think about what Lance would taste like, he knows he would taste like alcohol, but John doesn't think about what kind. He just doesn't think.

Instead, he presses his lips to the center of Lance's chest and Lance is lifting his hips already, wanting John, so John slides off Lance's boxers and takes Lance's cock in his hand. He strokes him firmly, letting Lance set the pace, because Lance is writhing on the bed, John's name falling from his lips over and over again, and his hips are jerking into John's closed fist, and this is the easiest hand job John has ever given him.

Lance is reaching for and putting lube in John's hand, and John leans forward and sucks on Lance's thigh as he opens the bottle. The lube warms as it touches John's fingers and Lance's legs are falling apart, so John just slides his finger inside Lance, and is rewarded with a moan and a plea for more.

It's not like John has another guy to compare Lance to, but John's pretty sure Lance is the most responsive guy in the world. Everything John does causes some kind of reaction, every single touch, kiss or motion makes Lance keen. John almost wants to spend time just experimenting, finding out what other noises can be drawn from Lance. But right now, Lance is practically thrashing on the bed, pushing his ass against John's fingers, begging him for more as he's begging him to not stop.

John removes his fingers and Lance moans, whimpers, says, "hurry, hurry," and John fumbles with the condom wrapper before finally opening it and kicking off his pants, putting the condom over his dick. Lance barely touched him and John's hard as a fucking rock because his dick knows what's coming, it knows how fucking tight and amazing Lance is.

John thinks that sex with drunk Lance is just a little bit better than sex with sober Lance, and that's shocking, because Lance was really fucking amazing when he was sober, John didn't think he could get better. And yet, somehow, he is. He's more vocal, more expressive and he was bending in ways that John thinks should really fucking hurt. Lance's legs are pressed to his chest, his feet on John's shoulders. He opens his legs farther for John, he wraps his ankles around John and begs him to go faster, harder. His eyes are tightly shut, and there's sweat on his brow, his fingernails bite into John's back with every thrust.

Lance wraps a hand around his dick and he jerks himself off and John watches him and wonders how the hell his arm isn't falling off from the continuous motion. Lance bites his lip, cries out and opens his eyes and looks right into John's eyes as he comes, and there's something about that gaze that sets John off and he's coming a moment later, groaning loudly and shallowly still thrusting into Lance.

Lance sighs softly and lowers his feet from John's shoulders, drops them on the bed and groans, "Christ."

John swallows a few times, tries to get saliva back in his mouth so it's not so damn dry and he looks down at Lance trying to catch his breath. John smiles softly, pulls out of Lance and lies mostly on top of him, propping his head on his hand and watching Lance. Lance's eyes are shut and his hands are on his chest, which is slowly settling back to a normal rhythm. John reaches out and touches Lance's forehead and Lance turns his head, opens his eyes and looks at John. John loses his breath for a few seconds as Lance meets his eyes, and when he gets it back, he pulls his hand back.

Lance catches John's hand before he can drop it on the bed and pulls it to his lips, sucking John's fingers into his mouth. John lets Lance do whatever he wants, sighing softly when Lance sucks on the inside of his wrist.

"Love you," Lance whispers against John's wrist.

John doesn't reply, just nods when Lance looks back at him. Lance sighs and drops John's hand, looking back up at the ceiling. "What do I have to do?" Lance asks.

"For what?" John asks him.

"To make you love me," Lance tells him, his eyes still on the ceiling, his voice soft. "All I want is for you to love me." He turns his head to John, his eyes sad. "What do I have to do? Tell me. I'll do it."

"Lance," John starts and then stops, because he has no idea how he can finish this sentence. "I… you can't. There's nothing you can do."

Lance nods, "Yeah," he says softly. He looks away from John again, turning on his side, his back to John. John sighs softly and runs his finger over Lance's spine, trying to offer at least a little bit of comfort. "What are you so afraid of?" Lance asks him.

"I'm not afraid," John tells him, even though he's not really one hundred percent sure of what Lance is talking about.

"You're afraid," Lance says.

"Of what?"

"Falling in love," Lance tells him, not moving, his back still to John. "Who hurt you so bad that you can't fall in love with me?" John doesn't answer Lance and Lance sighs again, his voice hurt. "I know I'm a guy and I know that's not what you're looking for, but…" Lance pauses and John almost thinks he hears a sob, but it's too soft, passes too quickly for that to be true. "I can tell you like me. I can tell in how you touch me. I've been patient, I told myself to let you figure things out on your own, but dammit, John, I can't do this anymore."

"I never asked you to," John points out. "I never promised you anything."

Lance nods, "I know. I just thought if I gave you enough time, you'd realize that I'm exactly what you want."

John sighs and pulls his hand away from Lance's spine so he can roll onto his back. He clasps his hands behind his head and says, "I'm sorry. I told you that you should give up on me, that I wasn't going to fall in love with you."

"I know," Lance whispers, and this time John is sure he hears tears. "I fucking know," Lance repeats and John thinks that he's talking to himself more than he's talking to John.

"I'm sorry," John tells him, and he really, really means it.

"I know," Lance says and sighs, reaching to turn off the light. He settles back down, moving his leg back to touch John's under the sheets. He's quiet for a long time, and John thinks he's falling asleep. Just when John is about to drift off to sleep himself, Lance speaks.

"You're afraid of love, John. I don't know why, but you are." John doesn't even bother to open his mouth to say anything, he knows Lance isn't finished. Lance's voice is quiet, slurring slightly from the alcohol. He's still facing away from John and John strains to hear him. "I don't know why you're pushing it away, and I guess I don't have the right to care, but I do. But if you're waiting for love to just knock you over one day, it doesn't happen that way. You have to fall in love, John, you have to be willing to let it happen, it won't just hit you over the head. You have to open the door and let it in, and I don't know why you won't, I don't know why you fucking refuse to do that, but you're really missing out on a lot. Because I could love you so much," Lance sighs; his voice is just so tired. "I wish I'd have that chance."

John waits for Lance to say more, not wanting to say anything to interrupt him. He says, "Lance, I'm…" he sighs, searching for his words, "I'm just. Sorry. I wish I could give you what you want, but I can't. But you're so fucking great and you deserve someone who will love you as much as you love them, and I wish that could be me, but it can't. It just… can't," John finishes lamely. He turns his head and looks at the back of Lance's head, waiting for a response. When he doesn't get one, he says, "Lance?"

He sighs when he realizes Lance has fallen asleep. John lies awake for a long time.

*****

John wakes up the next morning disoriented. He opens his eyes, thinks _this isn't the hotel_ , then realizes he's naked. In a flash, the previous night enters his mind, and he thinks Lance, and rolls his head to look at him.

Except Lance isn't there. The bed next to him is empty. John sits up and digs the heels of his hands into his eyes, rubbing them. He swings his legs over the side of the bed, sighing, tilting his head and listening for the sounds of the shower. Not hearing them, John gets up and heads to the bathroom. Finishing, he steps back in the bedroom and picks up his boxers, putting them on and leaving the room to find Lance.

The house is unusually quiet as John descends the stairs and he glances in the rooms, not finding Lance. Ending up in the kitchen, John sees a notebook lying open on the table and he crosses to it, glancing down.

_John,_

_I had an early afternoon flight, and I didn't want to wake you up. Sorry about last night, I know it's not what you wanted, and if I wasn't drunk, I probably wouldn't have bothered you. I know you don't want this, so consider last night my goodbye. I won't be bothering you again, and I'll understand when you don't call me. Thanks for everything. Help yourself to a shower, there's towels in the closet and if you can find something, feel free to eat. Just lock up on the way out. Take care of yourself._

_I love you,  
Lance_

John reads the note three times, like it's going to change after the second time. He carefully rips out the page, folding it and taking it back upstairs, slipping it into his jeans pocket. He finds a towel and turns on the shower. Hanging the towel over the shower rod to dry after he gets out, John wrinkles his nose at his dirty clothes and opens a few drawers. He steals one of Lance's shirts, thinking Lance will probably never even miss it.

Calling a cab, he goes back to the kitchen to find something to eat while he waits. He makes a couple pieces of toast and doesn't butter them before he eats them. He drinks orange juice from the carton and finishes it, figuring it'll go bad before Lance gets back. He locks up the house and sits on the front step to wait for his cab.

He does all this without thinking. He doesn't think about what it means that Lance basically left him a Dear John note on the kitchen table. He doesn't think about the fact that if Lance means what he wrote, then Lance is stronger than John ever was, and John isn't the one in love.

When the cab pulls up, John gives the address of the hotel, pays the guy to wait for him to run inside and get his shit, and takes the same cab to the airport. He suddenly just wants to be home.

He debates on calling Lance. He hates that Lance left without waking him up. Why would he do that? Lance should have woken John, should have at least said goodbye if they weren't going to see each other again. Why wouldn't he wake up John? If he cared like John like he claimed, then he should have said goodbye.

John thinks about Lance the whole flight home. He wonders if he should go to Lance's house, demand that Lance talk to him and tell him why he couldn't be bothered to say anything to him. He picks up his luggage and finds his car in the airport parking lot. He hesitates at the exit for Lance's house and then decides to drive past it, just heading home.

But when he gets home, he calls Lance. He doesn't care if Lance gets pissed off, because John's pissed off. He's pissed that Lance didn't have the common courtesy to either wait for John to get up, or if he was in such a damn hurry to get to the airport, just wake John up to tell him to have a safe flight home, or hell, to have a nice life.

Lance answers on the second ring and his voice is wary, as if he knows John's pissed off at him. John doesn't even say hello, he just says, "thanks so fucking much for waking me up."

Lance sighs. "John… I…"

"No," John interrupts. "Just shut up. I mean, you tell me I treat you like a whore, how do you think I felt? Jesus, why didn't you just leave money on the nightstand?"

John can practically see Lance rolling his eyes as he says, "you're really making a big deal out of nothing. I had a flight at twelve thirty, John. You were passed out."

"How the hell did you even get up for it? You were wasted."

"I'm used to getting up when I don't want to," Lance tells him. He sighs again, "Look, I'm sorry that I offended you or whatever, but I had to just get out of there. I know you want to sever ties, John, I'm not an idiot, okay? I don't hear from you and when I do, it's because you're looking to get laid. And hey, I'm all about getting laid, but… I can't do it anymore. And if you're not going to walk away for good, I am."

"You could have at least said goodbye," John tells him.

Lance is quiet for a long time. "Yeah. I could have. I'm sorry."

John feels the fight going out of him; he really does not want to fight with Lance. He doesn't want their last conversation to be a fight. He sighs and sinks into the chair in his living room. He stares at the stain on his rug from the wine. Lance almost got it out. John probably could have done more with it, but after Lance left, he didn't bother with the fiber cleaner.

"It's okay," John says. "I understand. I mean, I wish you would have, but it's cool."

"John," Lance says, then hesitates, "you have to know I wanted to. I watched you sleep for a few minutes, but it was just… it was easier this way. You know how I feel, and I didn't want to get into it with you and I didn't want to fight, and truthfully, it was just easier to walk away knowing you had no idea."

"Okay," John says, nodding. "Well…" his voice trails off, and he has no idea what to even say anymore. "I guess this is it, huh?"

"Yeah," Lance says softly. "I can't do this anymore, I just can't see you once in a while. Just when I'm getting over it, you show up again. I'm sorry."

John waves his hand, even though Lance can't see him. He says, "Forget it, you have nothing to apologize for."

"Okay," Lance says, his voice quiet. There's an awkward silence for a moment before Lance clears his throat. "So um, hey, I have to go. I'm exhausted."

"Oh, right, of course," John says, and he feels like his voice is nervous, which is just stupid, since there's nothing to be nervous about. "I guess…" he laughs nervously, "I guess I won't be talking to you."

John can hear the smile in Lance's voice, and yet, at the same time, Lance's voice is sad. "Yeah, I guess not. Take care of you, okay?"

"You, too," John tells him.

"Bye, John," Lance says.

"Bye, Lance," John says and waits for the soft click of Lance hanging up the phone before he does the same.

*****

Now that John doesn't have to worry about Lance, he throws himself into work. He writes songs, lots of songs. They all suck, but at least he's writing again. His songs are reminiscent of _Gutterflower_ , they're all dark and have underlying tones of misery, and John doesn't think about what that means about his feelings for Lance. Out of the ten songs he writes, he only likes one of them, and it's sketchy at best, verses are unfinished and the chorus needs work, but John has a good feeling about it.

He calls Rob and asks him to come over, check it out, maybe talk about the bass line. They're not technically recording anything until after the new year, but there's nothing wrong with getting a jump on things. John buys a couple cases of beer, gets out a few steaks and waits for Rob.

Rob's late and John's not surprised. Rob's not really known for being on time, hell, neither is John for that matter, and John didn't really expect Rob until at least a half hour after he was expected.

John's outside on his deck flipping a few steaks when Rob decides to show up. He lets himself into John's house, helps himself to a beer and comes outside. "Hey man," Rob says, sitting on one of the chairs.

"Hey," John answers, picking up his beer and taking a swallow as he turns the heat down on the grill and closes the lid. "What's up?"

"Nothing," Rob says. "Smells good," John nods his thanks and leans against the deck railing. "Surprised to hear you've been writing," Rob says to him.

John laughs, "Not as surprised as I am, believe me." He shakes his head, "They all suck. Except this one song, which I want you to look at. I'm not used to writing so much all at once."

"What's up?" Rob asks him, and John kind of hates that Rob knows him so well. "Why are you writing?"

John shrugs, turns back to the grill, not looking at Rob. He turns the potatoes, makes sure the veggies aren't burning and says, "Nothing, really. Just clearing my head."

"Uh huh," Rob says, noncommittally. "Okay. So where's this song?"

John glances over his shoulder, "On the kitchen table. Grab the plates while you're in there."

Rob gets up and gets the plates, handing them to John before sitting back down. John doesn't talk much as he gets the food off the grill. One of the great things about being friends with Rob for so long is that they don't have to constantly be talking, they're comfortable sitting in silence. Rob's reading John's lyrics, and no matter how many times this happens, John always feels a little weird when someone else reads his work in front of him, and he likes that he doesn't have to keep up a steady stream of conversation with Rob, because he's sure it would all come out like nervous babble.

Rob sets the sheets down as John sets a plate in front of him. Rob picks up his beer, takes a drink, then stabs a piece of grilled zucchini with his fork. He looks up at John as he chews. "So that guy is history, then?"

John sits down, picks up his napkin and looks at Rob. "What?"

"You and that guy who wanted you are finished?" Rob asks, cutting his steak.

"Lance," John says absently.

Rob waves his fork, "Okay. Lance. You finally broke it off with him for good?"

"Why would you say that?"

Rob laughs, "This song has him all over it, John. Unless you and Melina are over before you really started. This is all… depressing or something. At least so far."

John reaches for the sheets, "It is not! It's just a song, Rob. It's not about Lance."

Rob gives him an 'oh really?' look and plucks the papers from John's fingers, scanning the words. "Okay, here. 'I'm not sure I believe anything I feel.'" He looks up at John. "You didn't think you were gay." Rob holds up his hand when John opens his mouth, "Okay, not gay, but whatever. You didn't think you were." He looks back down, reading. "'You're changing everything in me.'" He smirks at John. "This is so about Lance."

"Fuck you, Rob," John says, and his voice is harsh and he knows it, and he also knows that Rob knows when John gets like this, Rob's usually right.

"Oh, here's the biggest one," Rob says, "'the ones who love us are the ones who we deceive.'"

John shoves a piece of steak into his mouth and refuses to answer. He didn't write this song for Lance. And it's not depressing, not really. Okay, maybe it could be cheered up a little bit, but this is John, he doesn't write happy songs, he never has, and he really can't see himself starting. But he wouldn't say this song is depressing. Maybe a little bit sad, but not depressing.

And even if it was depressing - which it isn't - John's not depressed. The thing with Lance is over, that's what John wanted and now that John has it, he's happy. Thrilled, even. He's getting to the point where he doesn't think about Lance all the time, and that's exactly how John likes it.

"Look," John says, glaring at Rob, "it's not about Lance. I told you that I wanted to break off whatever it was we were doing, and I did. It's over, it's what I wanted, and I'm sure as hell not writing songs about him."

Rob nods and doesn't say anything. He chews a bite of his potato and takes a long drink from his beer. "Okay," he says, then casually asks, "so how's Melina, then?"

John narrows his eyes at Rob. He can tell Rob is thinking something, that he's up to something, he's fishing, but John can't figure out what Rob's fishing for. "I don't know," John says warily, "I haven't talked to her. She's coming out next month, we'll talk then."

"She know about Lance?"

"Kind of," John says and Rob raises his eyebrows in question. "She knows about him. She just thinks he's a girl." Rob chokes on his beer and coughs for a minute and John rolls his eyes. "Shut up, I couldn't tell her. I didn't want her thinking I was gay."

"Because you're not," Rob says, a hint of humor in his voice.

"Because I'm not," John agrees. "I'm straight. Lance was just…" John waves his hand, searching for the words, "good blow jobs. And a tight fuck." John almost winces at that, he hates that he's blowing off what Lance was to him. Lance wasn't just a fuck, and John knows it. Hell, Rob probably knows it, but Rob is too fucking nice to say anything. John feels like an asshole putting him into that category, but if that's what he has to do, that's what he has to do. It all just cements in John's mind the fact that Lance is better off without him.

"So Melina comes next month and you're going to hang out?" Rob asks and John nods. "She seems nice, I hope it works out."

"Me too," John tells him. He smiles, his eyes falling onto the sheet of paper with the lyrics scrawled on them. A picture of Lance flashes through John's mind as he scans the words. He shakes his head slightly, pushes the picture out of his head and changes the subject. He's done thinking about Lance.

*****

Melina comes to Los Angeles the first week in November. John figures they'll spend some time in LA before heading back East for Thanksgiving. Melina's family is in the city, so they'll spend the holiday with them, and then head to Buffalo the week after. The live CD and DVD drops at the end of the month, so even though Melina is in California, John's pretty busy finalizing extremely last minute details and doing some very minimal promo for it. He gets an advanced copy of it, and one day when Melina's out shopping, he puts it in and studies it.

He's not sure why he watches it, it's not like he's going to be doing the show again. Rob sometimes watches videos of their shows to hear how it was, if things should be changed for the next show, but that makes no sense with this show. John turns on the commentary and doesn't remember saying half the shit he did, all he remembers is that he and Rob showed up high and then someone brought beer.

He thinks back to Buffalo, the night of the show. He remembers Melina in the shower; how he thought of Lance. He wonders if he'll always think of Lance when he has sex in the shower, he thinks he probably will. He's finally at the point where he only thinks of Lance briefly when he's getting a blow job, and he rarely thinks about asking Melina to use her finger at all, so he figures he's making progress.

He does wonder about Lance once in a while. He hopes that Lance is doing okay. He's probably an egotistical asshole to think that Lance might not be, but John doesn't think Lance is really over him yet, he was in love with him for a while, after all. But he doesn't call Lance. He doesn't let himself even pick up his phone when he's thinking of Lance. He wants to respect Lance's wishes, he doesn't want to call Lance at all. This is what Lance wanted, and John's going to do that.

He almost called him one night when he was drunk, but he had enough wits about him to not actually dial the phone. He called Melina instead and she got a big laugh out of John being stupid on the phone. The next morning, it came back to him, and John deleted Lance's number from his phone, because he didn't want to take any chances.

Melina's been really great for John, too, he thinks. She only asked him once, "is it over with her?" and when he said yes, she just smiled sweetly and kissed him, not bringing it up again. She never asked him details or what happened or anything beyond that first question, and John's immensely grateful for that. He really didn't want to lie to her more than he had to.

Thanksgiving rolls around and he meets the family and it's horrible and good at the same time, but John just isn't really ready for this step. He's not in love with her, he's not at the meet the parents phase of the relationship. But Melina clearly is, and John's making a conscious effort to move on with his life and have this positive relationship with a girl who really cares for him, and it's such a nice change from what he had with Adrienne, and maybe it's not too early for him to meet her parents, maybe this is what people in normal relationships do, so John goes along with it and he meets her family and forces himself to only have two glasses of wine with dinner and it's not as bad as he expected.

It's not really great, either, though. Melina's father clearly doesn't approve, he thinks John is too old - which is ridiculous, John thinks, Melina's older than both Adrienne and Lance, that's a step in the right direction, although, he keeps that thought to himself - and her father doesn't really approve of the rock star lifestyle, another reason John has two glasses of wine and then water for the rest of the weekend. Melina's mother seems to really like him, and John's always related better to mothers than to fathers, and he's sure that has something to do with him being raised by four women, and it's times like this John's really fucking thankful for his sisters.

But he still can't wait to get out of there and back to Buffalo. Melina laughs at him when he practically runs out of her parents' house the afternoon they're leaving, but he doesn't even care. He steps out of the front door and feels like a huge weight has been lifted. Melina's excited about going to meet John's sisters and he feels like he should warn her, that they're tough bitches who don't put up with shit from anyone. Hell, none of the Rzezniks do, that's a product of their childhood, they had enough shit to deal with when they were kids, they're just not going to take it when they're adults. He thinks he should tell her that they'll probably be at least a little bit rude, but they don't really mean it, and they'll probably give her the third degree, and they do mean to do that. He tells her all this on the drive to Buffalo, and she asks him briefly about his mom and dad, but he doesn't want to answer, he doesn't want to tell her things beyond what she already knows from interviews. That's enough. That's more than enough for John.

John has a house in Buffalo, and they stay there. They meet John's family when Phyllis has a big dinner, and John thinks that's totally ridiculous, because everyone's going to be together again in a month for Christmas, and why have two big dinners, but hey, he's not the one cooking, he just has to show up and eat and John can definitely do that.

Melina fits in perfectly. John's almost impressed. He likes that he doesn't have to baby-sit her, he can leave her in the kitchen and go into the living room and just relax and not have to worry that she's cursing him to hell and back for leaving her alone with his sisters. He smiles at her over the dinner table and he's almost a little bit scared when she agrees to go shopping the next day with Kate, because shopping is a big deal and Kate has all the good dirt on John.

Well. Not all of it, John supposes as he picks up his beer and takes a long swallow of it. None of them know about Lance.

*****

Melina can't stay in Buffalo with John, she has to go back to the city and get some work done. John drives her to the airport and kisses her goodbye. She smiles up at him and she gets a look in her eye and John waits for her to say whatever it is she's going to say, but she doesn't say anything. She just kisses him again and gets on the plane, making him promise to call her.

John stops at the grocery store on the way back to his place. He's staying at least through Christmas, then he has to be back in California for New Years Eve. Beyond that, John has no idea what he's planning on doing. He knows he has a record to write and record and he's thinking that the 2005 release is looking hopelessly optimistic, so he figures it'll be ready in early 06 which seems like a lifetime away.

Time has never passed quickly for John, but the month of December seems to fly by. He spends time with his family, and now that he's older he appreciates that more and more. He settles in in Buffalo, he can feel his roots sinking into the earth and every day he looks at the calendar and hopes that time slows even more so he doesn't have to go back to Los Angeles where everyone is fake and nothing ever seems real.

But that doesn't happen. Christmas is upon him before he knows it, and he's heading to the airport to pick up Melina. He's at the baggage area, he hates airports, hates how he can't smoke inside them, and when Melina told him to not meet her at the gate, he jumped at the chance to stand outside as long as possible.

She comes down the stairs to the baggage claim and she grins when she sees him. John's excited to see her, but he feels like something's missing. He hasn't missed her as much as he hoped he was going to, he doesn't get that same rush of excitement to see her as he used to get when he saw Lance after a long period of time. He feels like he has to force a smile onto his face, which is just fucking ridiculous, because he really does like her a whole fucking lot, and he's really getting sick of thinking about Lance, setting the bar for how he feels at what he felt when Lance was around.

Melina jumps into his arms, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him thoroughly right in the middle of the baggage claim. John smiles against her mouth and kisses her back, because this he definitely missed. She pulls back briefly and grins, kissing him quickly again before setting her feet back on the ground.

"God, I've missed you," she says to him and he smiles at her, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

"I missed you, too," he says, and he really does mean it. He did miss her. Maybe not as much as she missed him, but that's okay, he reassures himself, women naturally get more attached and feel more in this stage. He'll be fine.

She links her arm though his and they get her luggage, and she doesn't shut up the whole time. But it's not annoying, not how it used to be with Adrienne. Melina has great stories about people at work, and John loves listening to her, she always tells the stories with such animation, mimicking the people she's talking about. John doesn't even think she knows she's doing it, and he finds it really fucking adorable.

They drive back to John's house and by the time they get there, John's really ready to get laid. He might not have missed her as much as he thinks he should, but now that she's here, he's realizing he missed her a hell of a lot more than he thought. She's grinning at him like she knows he wants to get in her pants and John's completely okay with that, because she's looking at him like she's going to devour him in the car if they don't go inside.

They leave her bags in the car, John tells her he'll come out later and get them, and she doesn't argue with him. He takes her hand and practically drags her to the house, and she pushes him inside and against the wall, kissing him before the door is even closed.

They make it to the bedroom, but barely. There's a trail of clothes leading through the house and they don't waste time with foreplay, they're on the bed and fucking, both of them short of breath from the intensity of their thrusts. They roll on the bed, first Melina on top, then John and she's so fucking hot under him, John groans and comes and she reaches her hand between them, touching herself and she comes a few seconds later, crying out his name.

They fall into an easy routine over the next couple of days. Melina's usually up before John, so she makes the coffee and finds something for breakfast, and by the time it's finished cooking, he's usually out of bed. They spend their days shopping or wrapping presents or just hanging out, watching television or sitting in front of the fire. There's snow on the ground and it's freezing cold, but she insists on going outside, and when John's nieces and nephews get out of school for the week of Christmas, they bundle all the kids up and take the sleds and go to the hill on the outskirts of the city. They build snowmen and have snowball fights and she convinces all the kids to gang up on him, so by the time they're ready to go home, John is pretty much freezing right down to the center of his bones, but Melina puts her mouth on his neck and tugs his earlobe between her teeth as she whispers exactly how she's going to get him warm again, and John breaks a few speed limit laws on the way back home.

John's pretty sure that Melina's fallen in love with him. No, she doesn't tell him, she doesn't say anything to him about it, but ever since Lance, he thinks he's gotten better at the signs. He looks up to find her watching him, and when he smiles and asks her what she's looking at, she gives him a coy smile and says, "nothing," way too innocently for it to be nothing. And a couple times, John's caught her watching him as he sleeps. He'll just be waking up, his eyes still partly shut and laden with sleep, and turn on his side and she'll be lying next to him, a small smile on her lips, her fingers running lightly up and down his chest, but when he opens his eyes all the way, she's never looking at him. Then there was the time they were in the kitchen and John was teaching her how to make lemon meringue pie and he was showing her how to beat the eggs just right when she bumped his arm and the beater hit the side of the bowl and got out of control, causing egg whites to fly up and out of the bowl into their hair and they were both laughing so hard they could barely breathe, and she said, "god, I just…" and stopped and when he looked at her to finish, she said, "really am having a great time and like you a lot," and he knew that's not what she was planning on saying, but he let it go, because he just didn't want to deal with another person being in love with him when he wasn't in love with them.

Christmas rolls around and Melina wakes him up with a Christmas blowjob, and John decides that he's starting every Christmas from now on with a Christmas blowjob, because he thinks that'll make the day go a lot better. They exchange presents between them before going to John's sister's place. John gets Melina some clothes she was eyeing at Saks while they were in the city last time, a couple CDs she asked for, and a diamond heart pendant and matching bracelet. He wasn't really sure if he should get her the jewelry, he was afraid she would take it to mean more than it did, but then his sister Fran hit him on the side of the head and said, "For Christ's sake, Johnny, you're not asking her to marry you, stop being such a shit and get her jewelry," and when a Rzeznik woman talks, you listen, so he bought her jewelry.

John has no idea what Melina would even think to get him. He knows he's a horrible person to shop for, not only because he can buy whatever he wants, but because there's really nothing he does want. He's used to living cheap and he doesn't need expensive clothes, he hates wearing too much jewelry, so beyond earrings, that's out, too. He doesn't need a car or things for his house. His sisters stopped buying him things years ago, and only partly because he told them not to.

He opens the presents from Melina and finds lots of shit for his guitars. Strings and pics and there's a note in there about her buying him an amp, but she didn't know what kind he'd want. She gets him special songwriting paper and John doesn't have the heart to tell her he prefers those black and white composition books to write songs in because she looks so excited about the paper. She gets him a couple of shirts and John notices the label says things like Armani and Dolce and Gabbana and knows that they weren't cheap. He thinks that Melina spent a lot of money on him, and he hates that he thinks none of it was worth it.

But he smiles and pulls her close and tells her he loves the gifts, but there is no way she's buying him an amp after spending that much money on a couple of tee shirts. She laughs and kisses him and he closes his eyes and kisses her back and pretends that he's not thinking of a postcard and an old map.

*****

Christmas comes and goes and John's thinking about New Years and wondering if Melina is going to tag along to California. There's times when he wants her to go with him and then there's times when he hopes she doesn't. He can't make up his mind and the more she smiles at him and looks at him with love in her eyes, the decision gets harder and harder to come to.

 

He wishes he loved her; just like he wishes he could love Lance. The problem is he doesn't know why he can't love Melina. He knew why he couldn't fall in love with Lance, those reasons were clear. Lance wanted him to be gay, he wanted John to give up what he's known his entire life. John just can't - or couldn't - do that. Maybe that makes him scared, maybe that makes him a bad person, but he can't imagine not being with a woman again.

But with Melina, things are different. He wouldn't have to give anything up, he wouldn't have to change who he has been for the past thirty-nine years. This is what he's been looking for all his life, a woman to love him, to love him despite his flaws. And he can't love her back. And he has no idea why.

*****

Melina accepts his offer to go to California, and they fly out west a couple days before the show. New Years is on a Friday, and John spends the couple days before the show getting ready, rehearsals and sound checks and a couple nights of drinking.

The show goes well, and he takes Melina back to the room afterwards. They ring in the new year in bed and John barely thinks about Lance and how he rang in the previous year at all.

Melina rolls off him and props her head on his chest and smiles up at him. He looks down at her, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. He smiles, says, "what?" softly and he feels her shrug.

"You're just really fantastic," she says. She runs her fingertip over his chest and he feels her nail on his skin. He shivers slightly and pulls his eyes away from her finger to meet her eyes. She takes a deep breath, and as she exhales, she says, "I love you."

John closes his eyes, has a flashback to this same day last year, sees Lance's face as he tells John the same thing. He feels the same feeling in his gut; he feels the same kind of panic, of regret that he doesn't feel the same way. He hates himself a little bit, because what the hell is he doing? Why does he do this to people, get them to fall in love with him and then not be able to return the feelings?

"Melina…"

She puts her fingers to John's lips, shakes her head, "no, John, don't say anything." She smiles faintly, "If you can't say it back, don't say anything at all." She turns her head, rests her cheek against John's chest.

John frowns, looks down at her and kisses the top of her head. He tightens his arms around her and closes his eyes. She falls asleep and John lies awake for a while afterwards.

*****

Much to his chagrin, John'a awake on New Year's Day at one. He's not hung over and he's not the least bit tired, so he gets out of bed, pulls the covers back up over Melina and heads downstairs for a cup of coffee. He makes a pot of coffee and as it's brewing, one of the cats practically trips him when she circles his ankles, so he picks her up, petting her head and carrying her to the counter where his cell phone is sitting.

He dials his voice mail, resting the phone between his shoulder and his ear and holds the cat in one hand as he prepares his cup of coffee with the other. He has four new messages and he raises his mug to his lips as his sister's voice comes over the line and he grins. She's drunk.

Gladys talks too long and the voice mail cuts her off and he grins, expecting the next message to be from her, too. He deletes the message and waits to hear her again, and when he hears the voice that comes through his phone, he almost drops the cat.

Lance. It's Lance. Lance called him and he missed it. John's in shock, so he doesn't hear the beginning of Lance's message, so he interrupts it to replay it. He sits down at the table, putting the cat on the floor and ignoring his cup of coffee. He stares at the postcard on his fridge as he listens to Lance.

Lance is drunk. Lance is really, really drunk. John can hear the slurs in his voice, the way he can't really form some words, and John wonders who let Lance drink this much.

"John! Johnny! John, John, John! This is Lance. You remember me, right? Even though we haven't talked forever, you can't forget me, I'll bet. Even if you want to, you can't, right?" Lance pauses, "right? Yeah, right, you can't." John almost smiles. "I don't know why I'm calling, but guess what! I'm drunk! It's New Years and I'm drunk. I bet you're drunk, too, because you like to drink, you're always drunk when I see you, so I know you're drunk, even if you're doing a show, I know you're drunk." There's commotion in the background and John strains to hear. He hears someone ask Lance who he's talking to, and Lance says, "no one," and the voice says, "you're talking to John, aren't you? You're not supposed to call him, I thought you deleted his number," and Lance says - and his voice sounds proud, which makes John grin - "I memorized the number," and whoever Lance is talking to says, "give me the phone," and John hears Lance say, "John! Joey is making me give him the phone," and his voice drops to a whisper, "I'll call you later, okay?" and the line goes dead.

John doesn't delete the message. He listens to it a second time and saves it before moving on, his mind still on Lance's phone call. But then Lance's voice comes over the line again and John's breath catches.

"Hey, it's me again, I'm in the bathroom, Joey doesn't know that I was really coming in here to call you, he thinks I'm taking a piss, so I can't talk really long." There's a pause and then a sigh and Lance's voice gets quieter and John leans forward, resting his arms on the table as he listens. "I just… I don't know why I'm calling, I shouldn't have called, but I miss you, okay? I miss talking to you and I know this was my idea so I shouldn't miss you, but dammit, John, I do miss you. I miss touching you and I miss you fucking me and I miss your mouth on me, and god, have I told you how much I wish I could kiss you? I told you, right, I told you that, because you should know that. You don't have to call me back, it would be nice, but I understand, you don't have to, and it would probably be best if you didn't, but you can do whatever you want, okay? Okay." There's another pause and Lance says, "Okay, I gotta go. Happy New Years, John. I love you. Okay, bye," Lance says and hangs up.

John closes his eyes and replays the message, wishes he could just replay the end, wishes he could just hear the "I love you," over and over. After listening to the message a third and fourth time, he saves it.

The last message is a voice John doesn't recognize. But when the caller identifies himself, John slumps in his chair.

"Hey, John, this is Joey Fatone. We've met a couple times, and I wish I didn't have to do this, but I do. Look, I know Lance called you, but you need to not call him back. He's not getting over what you and he did, and I tried to tell him not to call you tonight, but he was fucking loaded and he doesn't listen to me. Anyway, don't call him. He loves you and I don't want to watch him go through that shit again."

Joey's voice is stern and John tries to figure out if Joey's really fucking pissed off at him or if he's just being a good friend. Joey hangs up the phone without saying goodbye, and that message John deletes. He closes his phone and closes his eyes, dropping his head onto the table. A fine mess he's gotten himself into, he thinks. Two people who are in love with him and he can't figure out what his problem is and just love one of them back.

He sighs, getting up and going outside. He stands on his front porch, watches a few cars drive by, and has to remind himself that it's fucking January. It's January and he's on his porch in a tee shirt and a pair of shorts. This is just so fucked up. His whole life has suddenly become this whole fucked up thing that he doesn't even recognize anymore, and he's at a loss on how to change it and make it right again.

He looks at the phone still in his hand and thinks about calling Lance. He thinks about what it would be like to tell Lance that he wants to see him again. He wonders if kissing Lance would help him or hurt him. Because maybe it would help, maybe if he just kissed Lance and got it over with, John would be able to say that it doesn't mean anything, he doesn't feel anything for Lance. Maybe that's the problem, it's just too unknown. And even as John's thinking off of this, he knows it makes no sense and he's just grasping at straws. He wonders if he should just admit that he has more feelings for Lance than he wants.

And what about Melina? She's an amazing woman who really loves him and it's not fair to her, because she doesn't know all the facts, she doesn't know John had that fling with Lance, and if she found out, would she still love him? Would she even want to be with John anymore? Although, by now, it's probably too late to tell her, John thinks. It's been months, he's had plenty of opportunity to tell her that it wasn't a woman he fucked around with, that it was a guy, and he hasn't taken any of those opportunities.

God, he really is an asshole.

John sighs and turns his back on the sunshine and goes back in his house. He really fucking hates this town. He thinks that his life was just fine until he moved here, and now he has boyband members in love with him and eighty-degree temperatures in January.

John makes a decision and calls the U-Hall rental place and gives his credit card number to hold a truck. He runs back upstairs and changes clothes, glancing at the bed to see Melina still asleep. He scribbles a note for her when he goes back downstairs, grabs his keys and heads outside in the sunshine.

It's time to make things right again.


	6. Chapter 6

Melina's up when John gets back, and she watches him quietly as he comes in the house, his arms full of broken down cardboard boxes. Her eyes follow him over her coffee cup and he drops the boxes in the living room, tossing the bag with the packing tape on top of them.

"Going somewhere?" she asks him quietly.

He glances at her and nods. "Back East. I'm heading home."

She comes into the living room and sits on the recliner, pulling her legs underneath her. She's only wearing one of John's tee shirts, and she stretches the hem to cover her knees, hooking the material around them so it stays. "What made you decide that?"

John waves towards the front of the house, dropping to the floor to tape boxes together. "Because it's fucking eighty degrees outside, Mel. It shouldn't be this warm."

She gives him a half smile, "You're the only guy I know who would voluntarily go back to six feet of snow and minus zero temperatures."

He grins, "Yeah, well, what can I say? I'm not the smartest guy on the planet."

She watches him in silence for a few minutes. He doesn't look at her, focuses on the boxes in front of him. He's not taking everything, just a few essentials. Rob already booked his flight home, he told John he was going to head to Buffalo to do his share of writing for the new album. John called him while he was on the road and told Rob that they were going to brainstorm this thing and write this album together. But John, unlike Rob, doesn't have any of his guitars or equipment back in Buffalo, so John has to pack his shit up and drive across the country.

"You want to come with?" John asks Melina. "I'm driving, so it'll take for-fucking-ever, but it'll be an adventure."

Melina grins, "Yeah, I could use an adventure. When do we leave?"

"As soon as we're packed. How's tomorrow morning sound?"

She tilts her head and studies him, "You running from something, Johnny?"

John glances up at her. Her voice was light, but there was something underneath it, something that made John wonder how much she knew. But he shook that feeling off quickly, she didn't know anything more than what John had told her, which was pretty much nothing.

He forces a smile and lies. "Just the heat."

*****

Buffalo is good for John, he thinks. He loves this city, he really does. For all the bad shit that happened to him here when he was a kid, there are a million good things, a ton of memories that he can't get out of his head. He loves driving down the streets and thinking _that's where we played our first show_ , or _when I was 14, I smoked pot for the first time behind that warehouse_. It's hard driving past the corner of Clark and Kent, it's hard seeing his old house, the place he grew up, the place where he watched his dad hit his mom, or watched his dad drink until he passed out on the chair. The place where he watched his mom die. That's not easy for him. None of it is. But this is his city, this is where his roots are, everything and everyone that is important to John is in this city, and it's the city he'll always, always call home.

Melina hates it. She hates the snow, hates that the city can get dumped with two feet of snow in a single snowfall. She hates that she has to clean off the car before she goes anywhere, that there's a layer of ice an inch thick on the windshield some mornings. But she doesn't complain. Much. She grumbles good-naturedly and there's days that she refuses to leave the house, but on the whole she keeps the majority of her feelings to herself.

The guys rented out the old Masonic Ballroom downtown, and they set up shop, working long days. Long, cold days. John swears he's going to go broke paying for the heat, but it's totally worth it. Everything is completely worth it, because John's feeling vibes he never got in LA, he can barely shut off his brain when he gets home; he constantly has chords and lyrics and beats in his brain just begging to come out and be put on paper.

Melina's great through this whole thing, she rarely complains when John's gone twelve hours a day. She stops by the Ballroom occasionally to bring the guys food, and once in a while she stays and sits in the back until John finishes. To pay her back for being so great, John leaves early once in a while, takes her out to dinner, and shows her a good time.

She hasn't told John that she loves him since New Years, and John's relieved. He's been trying to think of what he can say if she does happen to tell him that again, and somehow, he doesn't think "thanks" is an appropriate reply.

January passes and it's suddenly February, and the days are bleeding into one another. John has a hunch that the next few months are all going to be exactly the same as the last one, so he prepares himself for it. It's really not that bad, though, he doesn't mind. He loves his job, he finally feels good about this album, and he and Rob are getting a lot of good shit written for this record.

Melina heads back to New York City for a couple weeks, and John spends even more time at the Ballroom. With Melina gone, he's alone with his thoughts, he has nothing to distract him, so it's either spend more time writing with Rob or spend nights lying in bed trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with him.

He thinks about Lance a lot. He listens to his voice mail, the saved messages from Lance. He lies in bed, the phone pressed to his ear, listening to Lance tell John he loves him. He's written down Lance's number from the missed call log, and he fingers the paper night after night, wanting to call, debating if it's the right thing to do. He remembers Joey's message, how Joey said that Lance was finally getting over him, he wasn't miserable anymore, and John wonders if a phone call from John would fuck all that up again.

So he doesn't call. He listens to the message over and over and he doesn't call. He goes to work in the morning and writes songs, songs about love and hope and he doesn't recognize himself anymore. He's not this guy, he's not the guy who writes love songs, he's the guy who writes about bleeding to know you're alive and about heroin and abortion, he's not the guy who writes about believing in things and hoping things will get better.

Rob comments to him about it, asks him if he's writing about Melina. He then pauses and grins and smirks, "about Lance?" and John rolls his eyes and doesn't answer. Mostly because he doesn't know the answer to that question himself.

He wants it to be Melina, he wants these songs to come from his feelings for her, but he's starting to realize that it's probably not her. He likes her a lot, he thinks she's beautiful and amazing and he is really fucking lucky to have her in his life. But he doesn't love her. And he doubts that he ever will.

She calls and he's happy to hear from her, but he's not excited. He doesn't look forward to her call like he should. He doesn't miss her as much as he should, he wants her to come and visit, but he thinks he mostly misses the sex.

He doesn't save her messages to listen to at night. He doesn't replay her message when she tells him she loves him. He doesn't close his eyes and picture her.

It's Lance. With Melina gone, his thoughts are consumed of Lance. He misses him. He wants to call him, he wants to fly out to California and show up on Lance's doorstep. He closes his eyes and pictures kissing him.

John really isn't okay with all this new information, but he's starting to accept it. He doesn't like it, he wants to be with women, he hates that Lance, this fucking kid, is changing him. He hates that he's thinking about being with Lance, wondering if Lance could make him happy. He knows that he was happy in those moments he was with Lance, but if he's giving up Melina, that whole life, could Lance possibly be enough for him?

He really doesn't want to tell Melina. He goes to Denver for the NBA All Star game at the end of the month and doesn't invite her. He thinks about calling Lance and inviting him, trying to figure out what he's feeling there before fucking things up with Melina, but then he realizes what an asshole that would make him, he'd effectively be keeping Melina around just in case things didn't work out, and how is that fair to her?

But how is what he's doing now fair to her? Is it fair that she loves him and he doesn't feel the same? Is it fair that he's not telling her the truth?

But god, how can he? How can he tell her this? He lied to her before. He lied to her when he told her about the relationship he had in the past. He lied to her when he implied that he was with a woman. How can she be expected to accept this new information with any amount of rationality?

She can't. She can't know, John thinks. He can maybe break it off with her and never tell her that it was Lance. She doesn't need to know every little detail.

John flies back to Buffalo from Denver and he tells himself that he can do this. He can break up with her. He's done this before, he's broken up with a lot of women in his time, this won't be any different.

She can't get away from New York City until the middle of March, and John isn't in any hurry to see her. But when she finally gets to Buffalo, John can't do it. He can't break up with her. He knows he has to, but when she wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him, he can't help but kiss her back.

He's an asshole. He's an asshole and a liar and she believes in him and she trusts him and he's going to hell.

*****

John's late. He's running late, of course. He should have skipped the shower, it's not like he got dirty or anything in that Ballroom, all they've been doing is sitting around and writing. He didn't really need the shower. But he was freezing down to his bones and he needed to warm up, and the shower was the quickest way to do that.

He gets out and barely dries himself off before he's putting on his clothes. Rob'll understand, of course, Rob probably expects him to be late, but John hates to keep Rob and Miyoko waiting. Melina was dressed and ready to go when John got home, so it's just John holding everything up.

He runs down the stairs as he pulls a jacket on and says, "Hey, I'm ready!" and when Melina doesn't answer, he stops and wonders where she is. He finds her in the kitchen, she's sitting at the table, staring at nothing on the tabletop.

John enters the kitchen, his forehead wrinkled in confusion. "Melina? Hey, are you… are you ready?"

She looks up at him and he stops walking towards her. There's something in her eyes, something John can't quite place.

"Rob called," she tells him, and her voice is flat. "You were in the shower."

"Okay," John says cautiously.

She looks away from him and back at the table. "I was getting something from the car, so I didn't get back to the phone in time." John nods, wonders where she's going with this. "He left a voice mail, so I called it to see what he wanted."

"What did he want?"

"He had to cancel," she says absently, "Miyoko's not feeling well."

Well, shit. And he was worried about being late. He scowls, "Great."

"Who's Lance?" Melina asks him.

John's heart stops beating. He swears to god, everything in the world slows down and comes to a complete stop. There's nothing moving anywhere, time is frozen. He tries to make his face impassive, says, "Lance?" like he has no idea what she's talking about, even though he already knows that's futile.

"Yes, John, Lance!" Melina says, and her voice is now angry. "I fucking heard the voice mails that you saved! And I want to know - who the fuck is Lance?"

"Melina… he's…" John's mind is going a mile a minute, he's trying to figure out what to say, what he can do to make this right.

"He's what?" Melina asks and opens her arms. "He's some guy you were fucking, obviously!"

"No, it's not like that," John tells her. "He's a friend of mine."

She snorts and slides her chair back, getting up from the table. She picks up his phone from the counter and hits speed dial one. She turns on the speakerphone and holds it out in front of her as she waits for the voice mail to pick up. He curses the fact that he doesn't have to enter a password, because that one little thing would have prevented all of this.

Lance's voice fills the kitchen.

"John! Johnny! John, John, John! This is Lance. You remember me, right? Even though we haven't talked forever, you can't forget me, I'll bet. Even if you want to, you can't, right… right? Yeah, right, you can't. I don't know why I'm calling, but guess what! I'm drunk! It's New Years and I'm drunk. I bet you're drunk, too, because you like to drink, you're always drunk when I see you, so I know you're drunk, even if you're doing a show, I know you're drunk."

John stops listening when Joey cuts into Lance's conversation, he's heard these messages a hundred times, he knows what Lance is going to say, he can recite the message along with Lance. He knows when Lance is going to tell him he loves him, he can tell someone exactly how many times Lance says it, what his voice sounds like when he says it, and John can close his eyes and picture Lance's lips saying those words if he really wanted to.

But now is not the time for that. Now he has to focus on Melina. He has to deal with the mess he's gotten himself into with this before he can deal with what he's feeling for a fucking kid all the way across the country.

Her face is stone as the messages play. "Mel," John pleads with her, "please, stop, turn them off."

"No," she spits at him, "No. Do you hear these messages, John? Can you listen to them and even understand what I felt when I heard them?"

John tunes back into Lance's voice just as he says, "I miss touching you and I miss you fucking me," and he closes his eyes and turns away.

"Don't!" Melina says and finally, finally she closes his phone and Lance's voice is cut off. "Don't you turn away from me, you have a lot of explaining to do!"

"He's just a kid," John says. "He's a kid I met and I don't know, he wanted me, and I let him blow me, and he was persistent and… " John sighs, turning to her, "Look, I know this sounds horrible, but it's not as bad as you think, Melina! It's over!"

"Doesn't sound so over to me, John," Melina says, crossing her arms over her chest. "And just when were you planning on telling me about him?"

John sighs and sits down, "I don't know," he says miserably.

"What the hell was I, John? What am I to you?" Her voice breaks slightly, but she recovers. "You're fucking gay?"

John shrugs, "I don't know."

She's quiet for a long time and when he looks up, she's staring at him. "This is the kid. This is the person who was in love with you. The relationship you got out of just before me, isn't it?" John doesn't answer and she yells, "Isn't it?"

"Yeah, Melina, yeah, it is," John says and he has honestly never felt more like an asshole than he does right in this moment.

"You told me that was a girl," she says.

"Well, what the fuck?" John explodes, standing up and pushing back his chair. "You think that I should have come out with the fact that I liked fucking this guy? You think that would have made it any fucking easier for you, Melina?"

"Oh no," she says, shaking her head and narrowing her eyes. "You don't have the right, John. You do not get to be angry about this." He scowls and turns away and she shoves him in the back, "Fuck you!" she practically screams at him. "God, John! I fucking loved you! I gave you everything and you can't even tell me this?"

"This?" John says, "this is pretty big here, Melina! This isn't anything that I even remotely had planned in my life, so excuse the fuck out of me if I don't know how to tell my girlfriend that I liked sucking dick!" John curses and turns away from her, flinging open the door of the refrigerator and pulling out a beer. He twists the cap off and throws it across the room where it slides along the floor before coming to a stop at the wall. He drinks half the bottle before he lowers it from his mouth.

Her voice is quiet. "Why did you save those messages? Did you hope that I'd find them?"

"God," he says, shaking his head. "I would have done anything to keep you from hearing them."

"Then why? Why did you save them? If this is so over, like you say it's over, why did you save them?"

"I… I don't know," John tells her. "Maybe because it's not over."

She nods, "Yeah. You think?" she asks him sarcastically. She shakes her head again, picking up her jacket and purse.

"Where are you going?" John asks her.

Melina laughs and it's bitter. It's the most bitter sound John's ever heard in his life. "Anywhere but here," she tells him. "Have a nice life, John."

"Wait," John says, and chases after her as she goes to the door. "Please?"

She stops and turns around. John's heart breaks a little bit when she looks up at him. Her eyes are red, filled with tears threatening to fall, and John knows she's trying to hold them in until she's gone. His hand was holding her arm and he drops it.

"I really am sorry," He tells her. "I really, really like you. You have no idea how much I wanted this to work out." He looks at the floor, "I didn't want this to happen. I wanted to fall in love with you, because god, Melina, you are so perfect for me." He cups her face with his hand and she closes her eyes and briefly leans into his touch, "I'm sorry. Please. Believe that."

She opens her eyes and they harden when she looks at him. "Honestly, John? I don't know if I can believe anything you say." She turns from him and opens the door, letting herself out into the cold.

*****

And that's how it ends. Melina walks out and John's left standing. He feels like shit, even if he's a little relieved. At least it's done, it's over with and he can attempt to move on.

He tries calling her a few times over the next few weeks, leaving voice mails apologizing, never once talking to her, she never picks up. He doesn't blame her, really, he's an asshole and he'd ignore him, too.

He talks to Rob, tells him what happened and he just shakes his head, says, "way to go, John," and turns away. Rob and Melina always got along, John knows that Rob's pissed John hurt her. Rob's probably talked to Melina, probably got her side of the story before John even talked to Rob, and nothing John is saying is helping his cause. But he doesn't want Rob on his side, he doesn't want anyone on his side, they should all take Melina's side.

But he wants to talk to Melina, he wants to make things right. He just doesn't know how to do that. He's barely thought about Lance since this happened, he's in the back of John's mind, but his focus isn't on Lance. So weeks go by and John has no concept of time, he has no idea how much time has passed until one day his album is pretty much written and he has nothing to do in Buffalo.

They're not recording until June, and they have to be in LA for that, and John steels himself to go back to California. Lance is in California. He might run into Lance out there. He makes himself sick thinking about calling Lance, and wow, that's exactly what he needs right now. On top of worrying about a fucking album, he can worry about his fucking love life.

He's managed to mostly forget about Melina. He hates what happened, he still thinks he's an asshole, but she deserves better than him. It was all for the best. Rob tells him once in a while that he's talked to her, that she says hi, that she's over it, she's over him, she says that she could tell he wasn't as into her as she was to him, and that makes John feel a little bit better. Not much, but a little.

John has a thing in New York at the end of May, but right after that, he gets on a plane and flies back to California. He settles into his house again, opening windows, airing it out. His cats are thrilled to be home, they hated it in Buffalo, John could tell from the way they ripped up his couch. They run around the house like they're possessed and John wants to kill them, but he figures that he's just skittish himself because he's back in LA, and he lets them live another day.

Recording the album kind of sucks. He thought writing the album sucked, too, but recording the album is this new process that sucks. They changed producers, so now it's getting used to a new guy and a new guy getting used to them, and the weird energy isn't the same as before, and Jesus, John's been doing this a lot of fucking years and this might be one of the most important albums of his career and maybe this wasn't the best time to go changing things.

But it starts to flatten out, the energy starts to merge together, and this guy has some great fucking ideas for them, and John realizes that Glen really does know what he's talking about and he loosens up a bit on some of the shit he wrote and when he listens to the playback, he actually fucking likes what he hears for a change.

They get word that they have to play a show in Michigan at the beginning of July and John actually kind of resents it. He knows that it's a good thing, he needs to get out there and start promoting this album, even if it isn't coming out for another couple months, he needs to start planting this seed, but he's finally getting in his groove in the studio and he doesn't need to take a weekend off, he needs to stay home and stay in this mindset.

John thinks he has it all planned out. He thinks that his life is going pretty fucking great at the moment, except for falling out of the recording groove, and really, that can't be helped, he has to suck it up, so he does. So yeah, things are going pretty fucking great.

Until Melina shows up.

*****

She shows up on a Tuesday, she's sitting on his front porch when he comes home from the studio. He pulls into the driveway and shuts the car off and she stands up slowly, watching him. He's completely taken off guard, suddenly feels cornered, like someone should have told him about this and didn't, just to back him against the wall. He wonders if Rob knew, wants to call him right now, before he even says hi to her, demand that Rob tell him what the fuck is going on, but he can't, because she's watching him, she's waiting for him to get out of the car, so he can't very well pick up the phone and call someone.

He takes a deep breath and gets out of the car, slamming the door behind him and cautiously moving to her. She looks good, John thinks. California has always agreed with her, no matter how much she hated it. Melina always seemed to glow in the sun, John used to love watching her at the beach, the few times they went together. She really fit in out here. It's a shame John's such an asshole.

He smiles faintly and stops in front of her, a foot from the bottom step. "Hey," he says.

"Hi," she says softly, shoving her hands in her jean pockets. "How've you been?"

John shrugs, "You know, good. Recording the album mostly." He doesn't have anything else to say, so he shuts his mouth. They stand in awkward silence for a couple minutes and then John clears his throat and says, "What are you doing here?"

She sighs and sits back down. "I don't really know."

John bites his lip and waits her out. She looks small sitting there, almost like she's just turned into herself, like she's not really sure of anything anymore.

"I'm over you," she tells him.

"Okay," John says slowly. "That's… good?"

"Yeah, it is," she says. "I mean, okay, maybe I'm not completely over you, because I loved you, and what you did was really shitty, but I've moved on."

"Okay," John says again and wonders why she's come all the way out here to tell him this.

"The thing is," she says, looking up at him. "You need me."

John raises his eyebrows, "I need you?" he repeats.

Melina nods, "You do. You want to date a guy," she says and she's so matter of fact, John almost laughs. "You're a rock star and you want to date a guy. How will that look if people find out? Have you ever thought about that?"

"Well," John says, "I uh…"

"No," she says, "you haven't. And that's where I come in." She smiles at him, leaning back, resting her hands on the porch behind her. "I'll be your girlfriend," she rolls her eyes slightly, "fake girlfriend," she corrects. "You'll need someone when you go places, keep up appearances and all."

"This is kind of insane," John says to her. "I don't need a fake girlfriend."

"Sure you do," she counters.

"No, I don't," John says. He opens his arms, "Right now? I have nothing to hide."

Melina cocks her head, "You haven't called him?"

"Nope," John tells her, crossing his arms, "I've been busy."

"So we break up because of this guy and you can't be bothered to call him?"

John sighs, rubbing his forehead, "Great of you to stop by, Melina." He brushes past her and goes into his house.

Of course, _of fucking course_ , she follows him. "John, all I'm saying is that you should call him."

He doesn't stop moving, heads right into the kitchen, talking to her over his shoulder, "I'm too busy." He stops walking and turns to her. "Also, I don't need a girlfriend. I've been single for a long time, it's to be expected."

She crosses her arms over her chest. "You're forty, John," she tells him, like she needed to remind him of that, "people are going to eventually start talking, you know. Why isn't he married yet? Why isn't he ever seen in public with a girl?" She raises her eyebrows, "So unless you're planning on picking up random groupies in bars forever, you need a girlfriend."

"Hey," he tells her spreading his arms, "it's worked for me so far."

"Yeah, but you didn't have a boyfriend so far."

"Fucking Christ, Melina!" John tells her, dropping his arms and glaring, "I don't have a boyfriend now. I won't ever have a boyfriend, because I'm not calling him!" He smiles slightly, "Do I need to say it slowly so you get it? I'm. Not. Calling. Him."

She shakes her head, "You're really an asshole," she tells him, her voice even. "If you weren't ever planning on calling him, why'd you save those messages? Why did we go through what we did? We could still be together."

John shakes his head sadly, and sits at the table, "Probably not. I wasn't in love with you. It had been a long time and I hadn't fallen in love with you. How long would you have stuck around for that?"

She shrugs, "I don't know. Women do stupid things when they're in love."

He looks up and gives her a half-smile, "Like offer to be fake girlfriends?"

She tosses her hair, "Whatever, I'm over you." She motions to the door, "Come on, take me to dinner."

John groans but gets up, picking up his keys and following her to the car.

*****

Melina doesn't go away. John doesn't really mind so much, after he had time to think about it, having her around might not be such a bad idea. And if - a really big if - he ever decided to call Lance, he'd have a better chance of explaining to Lance that he needs a fake girlfriend who he never touched than he needed to pick up girls in bars across the country. Having Melina in his life might help.

If he ever decides to call Lance, that is. And that's not really looking too promising. John's too busy. He really is, that's not just an excuse. He works a lot, he spends a lot of time at the studio, he spends a lot of time at his home studio, still working on a few songs. Some of the songs written in Buffalo didn't really fit the tone of the album and they needed a few more to fill the album with.

John's running out of ideas, though. He hates California, he always writes shitty songs out here, he can never find the vibe he wants. He spends a lot of time out on his deck, sitting in the chair and watching the sunset or watching the stars, thinking about Lance. Melina's moved in, but she mostly leaves him alone, she knows him well enough to know that he doesn't like to be bothered all the time, and he's grateful for that. He needs this time to sit and think. He needs to sit and wait for song ideas to fall from the sky into his head. He has a feeling he'll be waiting a long time.

He occasionally picks up the phone to call Lance. After Lance left him the voice mails, John put Lance's number back into his phone, so he has the number handy. He saved it to speed dial, number four, right below Rob and Mike at two and three. Sometimes he sits outside and watches the stars and thinks about how Lance wants to go up there. He tracks the path of an airplane in the sky, the lights blinking on and off on the wings of the plane, and he wonders what Lance could find so fascinating up there, because mostly when John's in the air on a plane, he's just thinking he hopes it doesn't crash. But Lance must love flying, he's probably not scared of it like John is, he probably makes people move so he can sit at the window and he probably stays awake the whole time watching the ground move beneath them.

He moves his thumb over the keys of his phone, knowing the little bit of pressure it would take to hit the four key and have Lance pick up after a few rings. It's that part John's not sure about. What could he say to Lance? He hasn't heard from Lance in months, he hasn't talked to him in longer. It's not like they would be able to pick up where they left off before all this shit happened.

John sighs and closes his phone, putting in on the table next to his chair and picking up his beer, turning his eyes back to the sky. He looks up just in time to see a shooting star.

*****

August and September pass in a blur. The band goes to Wisconsin and does a show for Miller with Bon Jovi. Hanging with Bon Jovi is always a good time, and in a town that's pretty much centered around making beer, it's even better. John spends most of the weekend on a permanent bender, keeping it low key until after he gets off stage. He nurses the permanent hangover that goes along with the permanent bender for about a week after he gets back, and doesn't even think about the studio at all.

The new single is released in September and it feels really fucking weird finishing up and fine tuning a Christmas song so early, but Target wants the single for a CD, and since it's not a typical Christmas song, John doesn't have as much as an issue as he thought he would. But he was never the kind of guy to sing "Silver Bells" anyway. The video shoot is in October and Melina hangs out at the set, and John's pretty much used to her presence in his life now, he doesn't even think about her being around, he just takes it for granted.

He asks her to go to Mexico with them, figuring having her around when his press starts could never be a bad thing. She hangs out in the bar, gets to know the band a little more, makes herself seen around him when the fans are in the area. He gets used to having her sitting close, feeling her lips brush his when she gets up to leave a room, and he won't ever complain about watching her walk away, she really does have a great ass.

They still have sex occasionally. He still refuses to call Lance, he has no valid excuse, he just doesn't do it. He tells himself it's press and the new album, but he's pretty sure he just doesn't want to be rejected. He has no idea if Lance would reject him, but he doesn't want to take the chance. It's been a long, long time since he heard from Lance and even longer since he actually talked to him, and John's not secure enough in his - gayness? - to put himself out there.

And let's face it, John's horny. He can't jerk off every night, sometimes he just wants to get laid for real. And Melina's there, and she's willing, and wow, is he a total asshole, but she knows the deal. She tells him that she'd rather he fuck her and not have to worry about catching anything than going out and picking up some random groupie. It's not like she's not getting it somewhere else, too, she's seeing some guy that she met at a club in New York, so she has John on the west coast and this guy on the east coast and everyone's getting laid, everyone's happy.

John sometimes wishes he had someone to wake up to every morning. He wishes that when he rolls over after a night with Melina and she's still there that it was Lance, but he figures that he can't have everything he wants.

Melina bothers him a lot about calling "that guy you like," and John never bothers to remind her his name is Lance, and she never asks. John thinks if he found out that his boyfriend was fucking another guy, he'd sure remember that guys name, but apparently Melina just chooses to block it out. John doesn't much care, the less she knows about him the better, because he's pretty sure Melina wouldn't let him live down the fact that the guy he wants is just about half his age and was in a boyband.

*****

The album just about needs a title, and John fucking hates this part. The album also could use one more song, they have ten really strong songs and one that's not as good as the rest, and if they can't write another song in a couple of weeks, John's just not going to be happy with the album. And Jesus Christ, after working on it for this long, he better be fucking happy with it.

Somehow, the burden of writing this song has fallen to him, and it's not like he's complaining too much, everyone else is perfectly happy with the record, it's John that's fucking things up, it's his fucked up ideas of perfection that is keeping this from being perfect, so yeah, maybe the burden should fall to him. But that means he has to find the discipline to actually sit down and write a song and he's just not good with that.

He thinks that the extra song just lacks cohesiveness. The album is pretty fucking hopeful, especially compared to their last studio album, and this one song just sticks out like a sore thumb. So he locks himself in his studio and just plucks at his guitar and he doesn't ever figure out a good melody, but he gets a lyric stuck in his head and that's even better than a melody, so he takes out a pen and starts writing.

He writes for two days. He takes breaks to sleep, eat, piss and get more beer. There's a thin blue haze of cigarette smoke lingering in the studio and crumbled up sheets of paper are littering the floor, but he doesn't care. This is what he loves, taking an idea and cultivating it, making it breathe and take on its own life so that when he puts the pen to the paper, the words just flow.

He has no idea where the idea came from, he has no idea why he's writing about letting love in, because that sounds relatively cheesy, even for him and his album of hope, but dammit, it works. The lyrics fucking work and he's not above a little bit of cheese to get what he wants. Because when the song is done and he reads over the lyrics, it doesn't sound as completely horrible as he thought the line sounded and he thinks the might have found not only the last song needed for the album, but maybe the title, because that's how fucking good it is, that's how much this song ties the whole album together and he just cannot wait to get to work the next morning to find a melody for this and get it recorded.

He barely sleeps, and this is new for him, being so excited about something he's done that he can't even sleep through the night, but that's how it is. He's at the studio before anyone, even Glen, and that never, ever happens and when the others show up looking tired, with sleep filled red eyes, he's bright eyed and bushy tailed and he's pretty sure that Rob wants to stab him, but John just shows them his lyrics and they go inside to play around with instruments, getting the rhythm and tone of the song exactly right.

It doesn't take long for them to decide that the title of the album should be _Let Love In_ and this song is definitely replacing the other one. John grins like an idiot the whole time, because this was what he was looking for all those months in Buffalo, this was the song he was chasing and he finds it completely insane that he had to come back to Los Angeles to write it. They record the song in a day, which is some kind of fucking record for them, for John, but he just takes it as a sign that they did the right thing.

He's just happy when he goes to the Radio Music Awards he can tell people an album title. He knows that everyone will be asking them that, he knows that they needed this, and he's happy that he can give it to them rather than saying, "we're not sure yet, we're still trying to figure it out."

He takes Melina to the awards and somehow he wins one, and it's horrible and kind of amusing to him that a couple of Backstreet Boys present it to him. He has no idea which ones they are, he doesn't even know the names of the guys in Lance's group, and he wishes it were Lance handing him the award instead of this other blonde kid, because his eyes aren't nearly as weird and amazing as Lance's are. Also, maybe he could have convinced Lance to take him home, John could maybe have shown off his award like some kind of prize. Although, Lance has won more awards in a year than John's probably won in his whole career, so maybe Lance wouldn't be impressed with that sort of thing. But none of it matters, because Lance isn't there, and John doesn't go home with any blonde boy, weird eyes or not.

*****

Melina's bugging him to go out and John just doesn't want to go at all. He's just getting over being sick, and he has a performance for a benefit in a week, and he just wants to stay in and rest. But she's only in Los Angeles for another day and she wants to go to Koi, and John has to admit they do have pretty good food there, and he as much as he doesn't want to go out, he doesn't want to cook, so he gives in and tells her to get his jacket.

He feels better when he gets outside, his headache starts to disappear and by the time they get to the restaurant, it's almost gone. He slips his hand into Melina's, smiles down at her and leads her to the door. There's paparazzi around, but they mostly leave him alone. A few people are gathered on the street, and John will never understand why people stand outside a door of a restaurant just to get a two second glimpse of people going in and out, but hey, it's not him, it's not his life he's wasting.

He gives the valet his keys, gets his ticket and opens the door for Melina. They're seated relatively quickly and by the time the waiter brings the wine, John's smiling and actually having a good time. He reaches out and touches Melina's hand, tells her he's having fun, thanks her for making him come out when he didn't want to. She laughs and tells him that he should listen to her more often and he actually is starting to think she's right.

After dinner, Melina says she has to use the restroom before they leave and she smiles at John and leaves him waiting near the door. He shoves his hands in his pockets and looks outside the windows, considering heading out and giving his ticket to the valet so he doesn't have to wait so long.

"John?"

John freezes. He doesn't move. Maybe he heard wrong. Because he'd know that voice anywhere, and he's never run into him in Los Angeles and this would be a perfectly shitty time to start.

"John?"

John slowly turns around, putting a small smile on his face. When he's fully turned around and he sees Lance standing in front of him, he can't breathe. He literally feels like he has no air in his lungs and then he realizes he's been holding his breath and he inhales too sharply and starts coughing.

Lance reaches out a hand, "Are you okay?" but stops short of touching him.

John waves his hand, wishes Lance would touch him, but nods, "Yeah, I'm good. Sorry."

Lance isn't standing close enough, he's standing a few feet away, not enough to make it seem like he doesn't want to talk to John, but enough for John to get the message that Lance isn't exactly comfortable here. John's hands are still in his pockets and he's watching Lance and Lance isn't really looking at him. John looks away from Lance and glances around.

"Are you here alone?"

Lance shakes his head, "No, I'm waiting for Em." He smiles faintly, "How are you?"

John nods, "Good. Yeah, I'm good. You?"

Lance smiles, "Good."

John winces, because this is so awkward and John never practiced what he would say to Lance if he ever talked to him again, and he's thinking that maybe he should have, because anything would be better than this.

 

The bathroom door opens and John breathes a sigh of relief, because Melina is coming, but it's not her who comes out. It's a girl who looks vaguely familiar to John, but he doesn't know why. She walks to Lance and the smile on her face is open and friendly and John suddenly hates her, because he sees Lance visibly relax when she stands next to him, and he shouldn't be that tense around John.

"This is Emmanuelle," Lance says to him. "Em, this is John."

She looks at John and something flashes in her eyes, and John's sure that Lance told her all about him. Her smile doesn't fade, but John's not sure he would call it exactly friendly, but she sticks out her hand anyway, "Hi. Nice to meet you."

"You too," he tells her, shaking her hand. He looks back to Lance, "Listen, do you… can I give you a call sometime?"

Lance raises his eyebrows, "A call? You want to call me?"

John smiles crookedly, "Yeah. I'm in LA for a bit yet, I'd like to talk to you."

Lance's smile widens slightly and something shifts in his eyes, they soften slightly. "Yeah," he tells John. "That would be great." He licks his lips, "Do you still have my number?"

John's reaching for his phone when Melina comes out of the bathroom and he doesn't even see her coming, he's so wrapped up in Lance, because Lance looks so good after so long of John not seeing him. There's something different about him, but John can't put his finger on it. Maybe his hair is shorter. Or darker. Or who the fuck really cares, because he's here and John's going to call him and he's going to figure out what to say and then everything is going to be okay and John and Lance can live happily ever after.

So he's so wrapped up in Lance, he doesn't see Melina coming towards him. He feels her arm slip through his and he sees Lance take a step backwards, and he looks up to see confusion and disappointment on Lance's face. Melina's hanging on him, and it feels normal to him, but now he's thinking about how it looks through Lance's eyes and he just wants her away. There's too many people to push her away, so he subtlety tries to pull back, but she doesn't move, just smiles and asks, "Who are you friends?" and he has no choice but to introduce them.

"Melina, this is Emmanuelle and Lance." She shakes their hands and he can tell there's no recognition on her face at all when he says Lance's name and he doesn't really know how much Em knows, so he can't very well say, "this is the boy I want to fuck," so he doesn't say anything.

But he should have. Afterwards, when he replays this scene in his mind, he tells her over and over again about how Lance has the best mouth in the world, about how Lance looks at him, how he wants to bury himself inside Lance and not move, but right now, he doesn't do any of those things, so when she smiles and says, "honey, are you ready to go?" he smiles back and nods and is totally unprepared for the kiss.

Her hand is on his arm, but she brings her free hand up and cups his face. She pulls him close and he's too stunned to react, and when his brain is catching up with everything, it's too late and her mouth is pressed against his and her tongue is tracing her lips and this is bad, everything is so, so bad right now and his brain is screaming at him to stop this, so he puts his hands on her shoulders and steps away from her, turning to Lance.

And Lance. God, Lance is standing there and his eyes are wide and John can read everything in them, it's like he's been taken back to last year when he can read Lance's eyes better than he can read anyone else, and Lance is hurt. He's hurt and disappointed and he hates John, John can see it in his eyes, he can see the resentment. And John almost forgets why. He's confused for a split second until he remembers his stupid kissing rule. The rule that was never even a rule, it was just something stupid John said to get out of kissing Lance.

"Oh," Lance says, taking another step back and John reaches out, but Em steps between them and her voice is now cold, and John's sure she knows everything. "We're going now," she says. "It's best if you don't call him."

She glares at him once more for good measure and turns Lance towards the door. He watches them go, sees the flashbulbs go off, watches Lance smile for the camera, sees how he plays with the sleeve of his shirt, John can tell he just wants to be somewhere no one is taking his picture and Em has her hand on his arm and when the car comes, he gets in and pulls away and John's left standing at the doors of this stupid restaurant he didn't even want to go to in the first place.

Melina touches his back and he jumps, he had forgotten she was even there. He turns to her and he can feel his body shaking, he has to close his eyes and not look at her or he'll yell. He has to force himself to calm down before he says anything. To her credit, Melina doesn't say anything, she stands there and she looks contrite, even if she has no idea why she should be this way and he takes her arm, leading her outside, giving his ticket to the attendant and forcing a smile on his face.

The valet takes forfuckingever to get his car, and John doesn't understand why, because Lance got his car in like a minute, but John's standing outside and he has to force his smile and he has to introduce Melina to photographers and talk about his album and all he really wants to do is find Lance.

Finally, finally, his car comes and he gets in and Melina still isn't saying anything, and John's fucking happy about that. But that's not really fair, she has no idea what she did, it's not her fault John is an asshole.

"That was Lance," he tells her, his eyes on the road. He glances over at her and she's looking at him and she's clearly confused, and he says, "Lance. You know, the guy I want?"

Her eyes widen and she turns in the seat, "oh my God. Oh my God. John, I'm… Oh fuck," she says and faces front again.

"Yeah," John mutters. "Fuck."

"I'll call him," she says. "I'll call him and tell him that I'm nothing to you. That I thought he was just a friend or something and that I was just acting like your girlfriend because we were in public. I'll fix this."

John sighs and feels some of his anger dissipating. She's trying, she really is. She feels terrible, John can hear it in her voice and he shakes his head. "No, it's okay. Really. It's my fuck up, I got myself into this mess, I'll clear it up. Somehow."

John pulls up in front of his house and Melina opens the door and gets out of the car. "Are you going to talk to him now?"

John nods, "Yeah. The sooner the better."

She shuts the door and John lowers the window for her to talk to him. "If he doesn't believe you, have him call me. I'm so sorry." She looks at him and gives him a faint smile, "Good luck. I hope I didn't fuck this all up for you."

He nods, "Me too. You have your key?" Melina nods and John smiles, "Night." She turns and John watches her walk to the door, making sure she gets in the house before pulling away from the curb.

He drives to Lance's house carelessly. He stops only at red lights, goes through yellows and only slows down rather than stopping at stop signs. He half expects a cop to pull him over because that's the kind of night this is shaping out to be, but he pulls in front of Lance's house twenty minutes later unscathed. Lance's car is in the driveway, so that's a good sign, and John idly wonders if Emmanuelle is still there, because if she is, John might pick a different night to do this. She looked like she was about ready to kick his ass earlier.

He gets out of the car and goes to the door before he loses his nerve. The house isn't dark, there's a light on in the front room and John can see images flashing, so he assumes a television is on, and those are all good signs. Because he's an asshole, but at least he's not an asshole who wakes Lance up on top of everything else he did tonight. He reaches out and rings the doorbell, stepping back slightly and shoving his hands into his pockets. This better go well. He has a feeling it's not going to.

Lance opens the door and when he sees John, his eyes turn as cold as ice. He doesn't move, he doesn't back away from the door so John can come into the house, he doesn't even take his hand off the side of the door, it's like he's just waiting to slam the door in John's face. His face is angry, John can see Lance's jaw clenching slightly, and his lips are pursed together, a thin line across his face. John's eyes sweep over Lance, taking him in again.

"Lance, I…" John starts and then stops. Because what? Lance I what? I'm sorry seems kind of lame right now.

"Save it," Lance says, saving John from having to think of something to say. His voice matches his eyes, cold, angry. "I don't fucking want to hear it from you. I've heard - I've seen - enough."

"No," John says, shaking his head. "No, you don't get it."

"I get it," Lance says. He moves his hand off the door to cross his arms over his chest and wow, that's not better, because his stance is still angry, and John just wants him to not be angry anymore. "I saw the kiss. I know what that means." He laughs harshly, "You spelled that out for me loud and clear."

John growls, running his fingers through his hair. God dammit, this is not going how he wants it to go. "Lance, can I just come in, please? Can we not do this here?"

Lance hesitates and John holds his breath because he's sure Lance is going to slam the door in his face, but then he sighs, relents somewhat and backs up, letting John pass by him into the house. Lance shuts the door, but makes no move to go further into the house and John sighs, he figures they're going to do this here.

"I'm not in love with her," John says. "We're not even dating."

"You kissed her," Lance points out. "You kissed her. And you told me that you don't kiss someone unless you're in love with them. That's what you said."

John nods, "Yeah, yeah, I know."

He doesn't say anything else, he chews his lip and looks at the ground and tries to think. He tries to get his thoughts in order because he has a feeling this isn't going to end up well, he knows he's going to have to tell Lance the truth, and this can all go to hell really, really quickly. As if it hasn't gone to hell already.

"John?" Lance asks and John looks up. Lance shakes his head, "this was just a bad idea. You should go."

Lance is turning towards the door when John speaks. "I made that up."

Lance freezes. John's eyes are on Lance's back and he can see the way Lance tenses. He can see him stand up straighter, processing what John just said. His hand is on the doorknob and he lets go and turns around and says, "what?" so softly, John's not sure he would have even heard Lance ask, had he not been looking at Lance's face and seen his lips move.

"I made that up," John says again.

Lance's voice is a whisper. But it's a whisper laced with steel. "You made that up? So you didn't kiss me because…" John closes his eyes and doesn't answer and Lance's voice is no longer a whisper when he says, "Dammit John, fucking tell me! You owe me that!"

John shakes his head and opens his eyes, "You have to understand, Lance, this was unexpected, okay? You weren't what I had planned."

"Why didn't you kiss me?" Lance says.

"Lance, please," John says.

"Tell me," Lance says, his teeth clenched. "I want you to tell me."

"I didn't want to be gay, Lance! I thought that if I didn't kiss you, that would mean that I wasn't gay!"

Lance's eyes are wide. John thought Lance figured it out, he thought that Lance was just making him actually say the words, but if the look on Lance's face is any indication, Lance had no idea. And John didn't even soften the blow. He just blurted it out because he thought Lance knew.

"You…" Lance lets out a sound, and John feels like a knife sliced right through his heart because it sounds like a sob, and god, he's the worst person in the fucking world right now for hurting Lance like this. "You didn't want to be gay? What the fuck does sucking my dick make you, John? What the _fuck_ does fucking me make you?" He laughs again and wipes at his eyes and all the traces of Lance potentially crying are gone. His eyes are cold, colder than John's ever seen them and he shakes his head, his voice laced with disdain. "Fuck you, John. I'd say you're the gayest straight man I know."

"Lance…" John slams his hand against the wall, "Fuck!" He turns back to Lance. "That's not how it is anymore, Lance! That's not…" He sighs, "She's my fake girlfriend. She's my fake girlfriend because I want you!"

Lance laughs again and if John can never hear that bitter sound coming from Lance again, he'd be happy. "Forget it. I don't want you. I deserve better than you."

John nods, because Lance is right. "Yeah. You probably do," John tells him. This is it. This is how things are going to end. Lance is going to be pissed at him and John isn't going to be able to fix it. And John threw away a perfectly good girlfriend for this.

Well fuck that. _Fuck_ it. That's not how this is going to end. John is not going to walk out of Lance's house and feel like he didn't give Lance everything he could. He looks at Lance. He looks at him standing there, he looks into Lance's eyes and they're hard, they're cold as ice, but there's still something there, there has to be. He can't just hate John, John refuses to believe that.

Lance reaches for the door again, he's going to open the door and John's not going to have any choice but to leave, and if he walks out the door, he's pretty sure Lance isn't ever going to let him back in. That's unacceptable.

John's moving towards Lance before his brain can really register what he's even doing. Lance is opening the door and John's suddenly pressed behind him, reaching over Lance's shoulder and putting his palm against the door, closing it again. Lance sighs and says, "you have to go," as he's turning around, but he never finishes the sentence, he get out, "you have t-" and John's mouth is pressed against Lance's, swallowing the "-o go," tasting the words, letting them pour down his throat.

Lance is taken off guard, John can feel his surprise in the kiss, he has Lance pretty much pressed between himself and door and he can feel the tension in Lance's body. Lance doesn't respond to John's kiss, not right away, he brings his hands between their bodies and presses against John's chest lightly and John knows that Lance is pushing him away, but he doesn't mean it. He can't. Lance wanted him too long to push John away now. And John's not going anywhere. He's not letting Lance get rid of him that easily, not after everything. Not now.

John moves his hand from where it's still resting on the door and he drops it to Lance's shoulder, sliding it over his collarbone and behind his neck. John's thumb brushes against the skin of Lance's neck above the open collar of his shirt and he can feel Lance relax against him, he can almost feel the sigh. John opens his mouth slightly, he takes a chance and flicks his tongue against Lance's lips, his tongue traces the lines and Lance whimpers softly and John almost smiles, because yes! Yes, this is what he wants from Lance, this is what he's wanted for so long, to just kiss this boy until he was pliant in his hands. Lance opens his mouth for John and John forces himself to go slow, to realize that this is their first kiss and god, they've both waited so long for this, years for this, it has to be perfect.

John's hand is still on Lance's neck and his free hand moves up Lance's arm and now both his hands are on Lance's face, cupping his face, holding Lance's lips against his own. Lance's hands, which were between their bodies, have somehow ended up on John's waist and John can feel them under his jacket, fisting the hem of John's tee shirt.

John's tongue is in Lance's mouth and John sucks on Lance's tongue and he tastes wine, sweet wine mixed with a taste that John is quickly associating with Lance, even after just one kiss and he tilts his head in the other direction, pressing Lance closer to the door, deepening the kiss, his thumbs brushing over Lance's cheekbones. His heart feels like it's going to explode out of his chest and John feels like he can't breathe, like somehow kissing Lance is the most important thing in the world, and everything else just falls to the wayside and he reluctantly pulls back, slowly parts from Lance, his tongue swiping over Lance's lips one last time. John rests his forehead against Lance's, not quite gasping for air, but grateful to get oxygen into his lungs. He's afraid to open his eyes, but Lance isn't pushing him away, not yet, and he thinks it's maybe okay to look now.

He opens his eyes and suddenly there's Lance. All he can see is Lance. Lance's pale green eyes. Lance's nose. Lance's mouth, his lips that are still slightly parted.

Lance's tongue comes out to swipe at his lips and John resists leaning forward and catching that tongue with his mouth.

"I'm sorry," John whispers. "I'm sorry I lied to you. I'm sorry that I had those stupid reasons for not kissing you, because God," John's thumb brushes over Lance's lower lip, "kissing you is so good. I'm sorry that it's taken me this long to realize this, or, maybe that it hasn't taken me this long to realize it, but this long to admit it. But Lance." John hesitates. The words are on the tip of his tongue and he hesitates and looks down at Lance, who is just so fucking beautiful and so fucking good and so fucking everything John doesn't deserve and when John puts this out there, that's it - it's out there and he can't take it back, no matter how much he wants to.

"Tell me," Lance says softly. And John looks in his eyes and this time he knows Lance knows what he's thinking. "Tell me."

John smiles softly. He smiles and looks down at this boy who changed his world. He can feel Lance's hands on his waist, still now, waiting. He brushes his thumb over Lance's lip again, then over his cheekbone, and his eyebrow. He looks into Lance's eyes and he says, "I love you," so softly, Lance makes him repeat it, and John doesn't even mind.

"I love you."

*****

 

John's single drops in the beginning of April, which means the album drops shortly thereafter. The past few months have passed in some kind of amazing blur to John. John's amazed at the amount of time he wants to spend with Lance, and he knows it's because it's new and it's the beginning of something really great, but it's also partly because John knows he has to hit the road soon, he wants to soak up as much Lance time as he can get.

It's weird, John thinks. That he's slipped so easily into this thing with Lance. He still doesn't think he's gay, he doesn't really notice other guys, but John's not sure if that's because of Lance or because he really doesn't care about them. He figures if he has to classify himself, he considers himself bisexual, but he really fucking hates that word, so he just doesn't classify himself at all. And really, no one's doing much asking anyway. But he still notices women, and Lance doesn't seem to mind, which is cool, since John has to make sure he keeps up his appearances and plays the whole "straight rock star" thing to a T. But when Lance sees John checking out a woman, he doesn't get pissed off, he just rolls his eyes and smiles.

But Lance knows John isn't going anywhere. John's not sure how Lance knows it, maybe he's just over-confident. Or maybe he's right. Because John isn't going anywhere. The prelude to this relationship has lasted longer than pretty much any relationship John has ever been in. He didn't put all these years in it just to walk away after a couple months.

It's amazing how this great thing has happened in John's life and yet, life is going on like normal. Time didn't stop to let John just enjoy the moment with Lance, it kept going and now John's in rehearsals for a tour, he has a boyfriend, and the one album he feels most proud of in his career is going to drop in a few days. Life feels really fucking great for John right now and he's completely not used to that feeling.

Melina is still around, which John kind of hates, but even Lance thinks she should stay. And John's only half convinced it's because Lance really believes that and not because Lance and Melina have become really good friends. John's not really sure he's behind that one hundred percent, because he catches the two of them looking at him and then laughing a lot, and he never can get either one of them to tell him what they're saying. But Melina leaving isn't an option since she decided to hook up with one of the touring musicians. John thinks they're great together, and it does give her an excuse to be around more - which apparently, according to everyone - is exactly what John needs.

But really, when everything boils down, John doesn't much care. He's happy. He's finally happy, and he had just about given up on that. Yeah, he and Lance fight, yes, they don't agree on everything, and Jesus Christ, the kid is way too organized for John to wrap his mind around, but he's happy. He gets to wake up with this kid who miraculously doesn't care that John's too old for him or too bitter for him or too jaded for him. And somehow, this kid loves him. He really, really loves John, and John tries, but he just can't wrap his mind around that. He doesn't understand how Lance still wants him after all these years, after how John treated him, and he doesn't think he'll ever understand that.

But he's come to terms with it. He doesn't need to understand it. What he needs is Lance. It's that simple. His career could end tomorrow. He could drop this album and be a washed up has-been and he honestly thinks he'd get through it. And that's not something he's ever experienced before. He thinks if he stopped recording and went to live a quiet life in Buffalo with his cats and Lance, he'd be happy. And just that thought is so insane, so sappy, John groans and thinks he should just quit writing songs now, because if this is what he's thinking, from here on out, his songs are going to be songs played at weddings, and that's almost a fate worse than death.

He can't wait to take Lance home. He's not really sure about introducing him to his sisters, so maybe John just won't tell them he's in town. But he wants Lance to see where he's from. Lance had this perfect childhood and sometimes when John talks about how shitty life is, Lance looks at him like he's from another planet. And in some ways, he is. Where John grew up was leagues away from Lance's Norman Rockwell life, and John thinks Lance should go to Buffalo and see it for himself.

He has plans for him and Lance, plans beyond taking Lance to Buffalo. He's already looking at his tour schedule and making Lance write the dates down in his planner so Lance can figure out when to go and see John. He's thinking ahead to Easter and Thanksgiving and Christmas, and trying to figure out how long he has until he has to tell his sisters that he's dating a guy so he can celebrate the holidays with Lance. And all of this is so unlike him, it scares him sometimes.

But it's worth it. When he looks at Lance, and Lance grins crookedly at him from across the room, John thinks all these changes are worth it. He's finally grown up. He's finally acting his age, and maybe he shouldn't have resisted that for so long. He likes who he is now, he's happy when he looks in the mirror and he's happy with the direction his life is heading.

So yeah, maybe this isn't where he'd thought he'd end up, but this is where he is. And right now John isn't trading that for anything in the world.


End file.
